John Robb's ActivityTypepadTypepadtag:typepad.com,2003:profile.typepad.com/services/activity/atom/tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451576d69e2John Robbhttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/personhttp://profile.typepad.com/johnrobbtag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e00d83451576d69e201b7c9155a76970b John Robb posted an entry http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2017-08-13T17:25:37Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e201b7c9155a73970bCharlottesville and Malicious Social Disruptionhttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2017-08-13T17:25:37Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451576d69e2John Robbhttp://profile.typepad.com/johnrobb<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="45jge" data-offset-key="8tedf-0-0"> <div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="8tedf-0-0">Charlottesville wasn&#39;t a standard protest. &#0160;It was a social blasting cap. &#0160;An open invitation to a public fist fight between the left and right. &#0160;A fight orchestrated to create widespread social disruption. &#0160;A fight the police didn&#39;t want to referee. &#0160;A fight that was allowed to escalate for hours.&#0160;</div> <div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="8tedf-0-0">&#0160;</div> <div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="8tedf-0-0"><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201bb09b895d1970d-pi" style="display: inline;"><img alt="Aclu" border="0" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201bb09b895d1970d img-responsive" src="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201bb09b895d1970d-800wi" title="Aclu" /></a></div> <div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="8tedf-0-0"><span data-offset-key="8tedf-0-0">It was also a disruption that didn&#39;t have to occur. &#0160;Well run cities can easily deal with nearly any sized protest and this one wasn&#39;t even that big. Cities routinely:</span></div> <ul> <li class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="8tedf-0-0"><span data-offset-key="8tedf-0-0">Box,</span></li> <li class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="8tedf-0-0"><span data-offset-key="8tedf-0-0">Sanitize, and</span></li> <li class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="8tedf-0-0"><span data-offset-key="8tedf-0-0">End protests.</span></li> </ul> <p><span data-offset-key="8tedf-0-0">That didn&#39;t happen here... and because of that, a monster got out. </span></p> <p><strong>What went wrong?&#0160;</strong></p> <p><span data-offset-key="8tedf-0-0">As an example of malicious social disruption, something I&#39;ve spent the last decade thinking about about, </span><span class="_5zk7" data-offset-key="8tedf-1-0" spellcheck="false"><span data-offset-key="8tedf-1-0">#Charlottesville</span></span><span data-offset-key="8tedf-2-0"> was very effective. &#0160;It widened fault lines and damaged social cohesion at every level. &#0160;</span></p> <ul> <li>The reason for this? &#0160;We live in socially networked country and our network is configured for rapid amplification. &#0160;It can take any event and turn it into a national trauma in seconds. &#0160;To wit: &#0160;Notice how quickly Trump and his critics took this event national to fuel their fight. &#0160;It only took seconds.</li> <li>Unfortunately, the situation isn&#39;t going to improve. &#0160;O<span data-offset-key="8tedf-2-0">ur national discussion is now a cacophony of participatory (likes/follows) megaphones, talking over each other and resolving nothing. &#0160;</span></li> <li>Fortunately, we can adapt. &#0160;</li> </ul> <p><strong>How to adapt to malicious social disruption</strong></p> <p>Here&#39;s how: &#0160;</p> <ul> <li>In an hyper-amplified environment like this, we won&#39;t win against *intentional* social disruption by being good at responding its effects (resilience).</li> <li>We win by preventing it from happening in the first place. &#0160;Dampen it. &#0160;Avoid it. &#0160;Skirt it. &#0160;Block it.</li> <li>Good governance is a start. &#0160;A well run city or state dampens disruption, before it turns into a spectacle or terrorist venue. &#0160;It doesn&#39;t help it along as we saw in Charlottesville. &#0160;</li> </ul> <p>Sincerely,</p> <p>John Robb</p> <p>PS: The surprise tiki torch march (and follow on violence) in Charlottesville allowed the city a way to the cancel the next day&#39;s event. It didn&#39;t and the rest is history.</p> </div> <div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="45jge" data-offset-key="8tedf-0-0"> <div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="8tedf-0-0">Charlottesville wasn&#39;t a standard protest. &#0160;It was a social blasting cap. &#0160;An open invitation to a public fist fight between the left and right. &#0160;A fight orchestrated to create widespread social disruption. &#0160;A fight the police didn&#39;t want to referee. &#0160;A fight that was allowed to escalate for hours.&#0160;</div> <div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="8tedf-0-0">&#0160;</div> <div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="8tedf-0-0"><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201bb09b895d1970d-pi" style="display: inline;"><img alt="Aclu" border="0" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201bb09b895d1970d img-responsive" src="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201bb09b895d1970d-800wi" title="Aclu" /></a></div> <div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="8tedf-0-0"><span data-offset-key="8tedf-0-0">It was also a disruption that didn&#39;t have to occur. &#0160;Well run cities can easily deal with nearly any sized protest and this one wasn&#39;t even that big. Cities routinely:</span></div> <ul> <li class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="8tedf-0-0"><span data-offset-key="8tedf-0-0">Box,</span></li> <li class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="8tedf-0-0"><span data-offset-key="8tedf-0-0">Sanitize, and</span></li> <li class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="8tedf-0-0"><span data-offset-key="8tedf-0-0">End protests.</span></li> </ul> <p><span data-offset-key="8tedf-0-0">That didn&#39;t happen here... and because of that, a monster got out. </span></p> <p><strong>What went wrong?&#0160;</strong></p> <p><span data-offset-key="8tedf-0-0">As an example of malicious social disruption, something I&#39;ve spent the last decade thinking about about, </span><span class="_5zk7" data-offset-key="8tedf-1-0" spellcheck="false"><span data-offset-key="8tedf-1-0">#Charlottesville</span></span><span data-offset-key="8tedf-2-0"> was very effective. &#0160;It widened fault lines and damaged social cohesion at every level. &#0160;</span></p> <ul> <li>The reason for this? &#0160;We live in socially networked country and our network is configured for rapid amplification. &#0160;It can take any event and turn it into a national trauma in seconds. &#0160;To wit: &#0160;Notice how quickly Trump and his critics took this event national to fuel their fight. &#0160;It only took seconds.</li> <li>Unfortunately, the situation isn&#39;t going to improve. &#0160;O<span data-offset-key="8tedf-2-0">ur national discussion is now a cacophony of participatory (likes/follows) megaphones, talking over each other and resolving nothing. &#0160;</span></li> <li>Fortunately, we can adapt. &#0160;</li> </ul> <p><strong>How to adapt to malicious social disruption</strong></p> <p>Here&#39;s how: &#0160;</p> <ul> <li>In an hyper-amplified environment like this, we won&#39;t win against *intentional* social disruption by being good at responding its effects (resilience).</li> <li>We win by preventing it from happening in the first place. &#0160;Dampen it. &#0160;Avoid it. &#0160;Skirt it. &#0160;Block it.</li> <li>Good governance is a start. &#0160;A well run city or state dampens disruption, before it turns into a spectacle or terrorist venue. &#0160;It doesn&#39;t help it along as we saw in Charlottesville. &#0160;</li> </ul> <p>Sincerely,</p> <p>John Robb</p> <p>PS: The surprise tiki torch march (and follow on violence) in Charlottesville allowed the city a way to the cancel the next day&#39;s event. It didn&#39;t and the rest is history.</p> </div>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e200d8341bf69853efGlobal Guerrillashttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e00d83451576d69e201b8d2996e77970c John Robb posted an entry http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2017-07-25T16:07:52Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e201b8d2996e75970cJournal: AI Facial Recognition, Troll Shock Troops, and Online Polarizationhttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2017-07-25T16:07:51Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451576d69e2John Robbhttp://profile.typepad.com/johnrobb<p>Some items of interest:</p> <ul> <li><strong>Singapore</strong>: "Changi (airport) will be using facial recognition technology to offer self-service options at check-in, bag drop, immigration and boarding" What happens over the long term? Automated systems like this will seek to partner with companies like Facebook. &nbsp;Why? &nbsp;Facebook will have, if they don't have already, the best facial recognition AIs available. &nbsp;Why? &nbsp;They simply have the biggest and best dataset available to build it with, by a wide margin. &nbsp;They also can do it on a global scale (sans China/Russia) and they have strong vectors for expansion/growth into more robust methods of identity verification.&nbsp;<br /><br /></li> <li><strong>Oxford University</strong>: &nbsp;Where are the social media trolls and bots? &nbsp;A new working paper from Oxford (<a href="http://comprop.oii.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/89/2017/07/Troops-Trolls-and-Troublemakers.pdf">Troops, Trolls and Troublemakers: A Global Inventory of Organized Social Media Manipulation</a>) assembled a global inventory of&nbsp;<em>cyber shock troops</em>&nbsp;used by governments, militaries, and political parties to manipulate social media. &nbsp;Unsurprisingly, given that the US pioneered this technology and excels at all things marketing and media, the US leads the world in this new arms race:</li> </ul> <div id="photo-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b8d2996c24970c" class="photo-wrap photo-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b8d2996c24970c" style="display: inline-block; width: 500px;"><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b8d2996c24970c-pi"><img class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b8d2996c24970c img-responsive" title="Cyber Troops" src="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b8d2996c24970c-500wi" alt="Cyber Troops" /></a> <div id="caption-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b8d2996c24970c" class="photo-caption caption-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b8d2996c24970c">Cyber Shock Troops</div> </div> <ul> <li><strong>Princeton University</strong>: &nbsp;What led to the US political factionalization? &nbsp; One of the big reasons is that the US news media lost its ability to set the context for the news (the facts). &nbsp; Traditionally, this context was set through the <a href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2017/01/the-race-to-weaponize-empathy.html">emotional and moral conjugation</a> of the facts. &nbsp;For example, "the President's statement" is transformed through emotional conjugation into "the President's <em>outrageous</em> statement". &nbsp;The advent of social networking formally ended the media's monopoly on setting the emotional context for the news (although the division began earlier with Fox, Drudge, etc.). The US emotional context is now deeply divided. &nbsp;<a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/114/28/7313.abstract">Here's a Princeton study</a> that mapped the use of emotional/moral words online (pic below). &nbsp;It showed the US is deeply divided, by the emotional and moral context that frames the news (a far more interesting finding that blaming "fake news"). &nbsp; It also shows there is little crossover between the two groups, likely due to the way social networking self-reinforces the context and controls the people within it. &nbsp;What? &nbsp;People don't just read/hear the news anymore -- they retweet it, like it, add emotionally conjugated commentary to it, and pressure their friends with it now. &nbsp;</li> </ul> <div id="photo-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b8d2996beb970c" class="photo-wrap photo-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b8d2996beb970c" style="display: inline-block; width: 500px;"><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b8d2996beb970c-pi"><img class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b8d2996beb970c img-responsive" title="DEVmL0DWAAEd3dX" src="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b8d2996beb970c-500wi" alt="DEVmL0DWAAEd3dX" /></a> <div id="caption-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b8d2996beb970c" class="photo-caption caption-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b8d2996beb970c">The use of moral words</div> </div> <p>Some items of interest:</p> <ul> <li><strong>Singapore</strong>: "Changi (airport) will be using facial recognition technology to offer self-service options at check-in, bag drop, immigration and boarding" What happens over the long term? Automated systems like this will seek to partner with companies like Facebook. &nbsp;Why? &nbsp;Facebook will have, if they don't have already, the best facial recognition AIs available. &nbsp;Why? &nbsp;They simply have the biggest and best dataset available to build it with, by a wide margin. &nbsp;They also can do it on a global scale (sans China/Russia) and they have strong vectors for expansion/growth into more robust methods of identity verification.&nbsp;<br /><br /></li> <li><strong>Oxford University</strong>: &nbsp;Where are the social media trolls and bots? &nbsp;A new working paper from Oxford (<a href="http://comprop.oii.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/89/2017/07/Troops-Trolls-and-Troublemakers.pdf">Troops, Trolls and Troublemakers: A Global Inventory of Organized Social Media Manipulation</a>) assembled a global inventory of&nbsp;<em>cyber shock troops</em>&nbsp;used by governments, militaries, and political parties to manipulate social media. &nbsp;Unsurprisingly, given that the US pioneered this technology and excels at all things marketing and media, the US leads the world in this new arms race:</li> </ul> <div id="photo-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b8d2996c24970c" class="photo-wrap photo-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b8d2996c24970c" style="display: inline-block; width: 500px;"><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b8d2996c24970c-pi"><img class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b8d2996c24970c img-responsive" title="Cyber Troops" src="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b8d2996c24970c-500wi" alt="Cyber Troops" /></a> <div id="caption-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b8d2996c24970c" class="photo-caption caption-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b8d2996c24970c">Cyber Shock Troops</div> </div> <ul> <li><strong>Princeton University</strong>: &nbsp;What led to the US political factionalization? &nbsp; One of the big reasons is that the US news media lost its ability to set the context for the news (the facts). &nbsp; Traditionally, this context was set through the <a href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2017/01/the-race-to-weaponize-empathy.html">emotional and moral conjugation</a> of the facts. &nbsp;For example, "the President's statement" is transformed through emotional conjugation into "the President's <em>outrageous</em> statement". &nbsp;The advent of social networking formally ended the media's monopoly on setting the emotional context for the news (although the division began earlier with Fox, Drudge, etc.). The US emotional context is now deeply divided. &nbsp;<a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/114/28/7313.abstract">Here's a Princeton study</a> that mapped the use of emotional/moral words online (pic below). &nbsp;It showed the US is deeply divided, by the emotional and moral context that frames the news (a far more interesting finding that blaming "fake news"). &nbsp; It also shows there is little crossover between the two groups, likely due to the way social networking self-reinforces the context and controls the people within it. &nbsp;What? &nbsp;People don't just read/hear the news anymore -- they retweet it, like it, add emotionally conjugated commentary to it, and pressure their friends with it now. &nbsp;</li> </ul> <div id="photo-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b8d2996beb970c" class="photo-wrap photo-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b8d2996beb970c" style="display: inline-block; width: 500px;"><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b8d2996beb970c-pi"><img class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b8d2996beb970c img-responsive" title="DEVmL0DWAAEd3dX" src="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b8d2996beb970c-500wi" alt="DEVmL0DWAAEd3dX" /></a> <div id="caption-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b8d2996beb970c" class="photo-caption caption-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b8d2996beb970c">The use of moral words</div> </div>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e200d8341bf69853efGlobal Guerrillashttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e00d83451576d69e201bb09b21021970d John Robb posted an entry http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2017-07-24T20:31:15Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e201bb09b2101f970dWelcome to Our Global Censorship and Surveillance Platformhttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2017-07-24T22:03:26Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451576d69e2John Robbhttp://profile.typepad.com/johnrobb<p>I recently ran into a European counter-terrorism expert who complained that it was getting very difficult to build a fake profile on Facebook. &#0160;Every time his team tried to set up a fake profile, it was shut down in less than 24 hours. &#0160;Here&#39;s why he ran into problems.</p> <ul> <li>Facebook has an initiative to prevent the creation fake accounts (something Facebook strangely calls&#0160;<em>recidivism). &#0160;</em></li> <li>This initiative is a small part of a larger overall effort being undertaken by Facebook, Google and others, to become what can best be described as fully functional global censorship and surveillance systems. &#0160;I know that people have been concerned about this for a while, but it&#39;s not speculation anymore folks. &#0160;It&#39;s here. &#0160;</li> <li>The surprising thing to me? &#0160;The US and nearly all of the governments of the world (outside of China and Russia) are pushing them to do it. &#0160;</li> </ul> <p><strong>A global censorship and surveillance platform</strong></p> <p>Here are some of the aspects of these efforts:</p> <ul> <li>AIs that can identify violent imagery and extremist symbols in videos and pictures and rapidly delete them -- or better yet, block their upload or shut down a livestream as soon as they show up. &#0160;For example: &#0160;a live broadcast during a terrorist attack or murder (both happened). &#0160;</li> <li>Routine censorship and surveillance. &#0160;For example: &#0160;Facebook has ~7,500 (largely low paid subcontractors) reading posts and (private) messages to find and delete content they deem objectionable and ban the people who post it. &#0160;However, these folks are just temporary employees. &#0160;The real goal is to build AIs that can read posts and messages to ID objectionable content to do what the human team (above) is already doing, but on a global scale. &#0160;</li> <li>A complete social graph. &#0160;A real-time census of every living person in the world (outside of China and Russia). &#0160;One that knows all about you, whether or not you are on Facebook/Google/etc. &#0160;These companies are already close to this goal in Europe and the US, and at 2 billion daily users (Facebook and Android), so it won&#39;t be long before they expand that to the rest of the world. &#0160;</li> </ul> <p><strong>Where is this Headed?</strong></p> <p>The decline of the US security framework at home and abroad, growing political and economic instability and widespread distrust/illegitimacy will make an expansion of this platform inevitable. &#0160;Let&#39;s look at this expansion from a couple of angles: &#0160;</p> <ul> <li>Already, the social networks are replacing the media as the gatekeepers and the shapers of national and global public opinion. &#0160;It&#39;s clear that the media can&#39;t play this role anymore, they are outgunned. To wit: millions watch TV news while billions get their news from Facebook. &#0160;How will they replace the media? &#0160;They will use AIs to subtly block, blur or bury fake or objectionable information and conversations while promoting those they approve of. &#0160;This process will become extremely apparent during the next presidential campaign. &#0160;It also suggests that we will see candidates from within these companies running for office in many countries, and given their edge in using these platforms: win.</li> <li>AI&#39;s built using real time and detailed social graph information could become better at detecting violent behavior far sooner and better than human analysts. &#0160;Simply, it may not matter if the attackers were using Facebook or Google, the ripples from their actions on adjacent social networks might be more than enough to detect them. &#0160;Pushing this forward even further, as the data flows and the depth of the information increases, how far down in the stack of violence could these AIs prove to be effective? &#0160;Down to domestic murders, abuse, and rape? &#0160; &#0160;</li> <li>A global ID. &#0160;Simply, Facebook is getting close to being able to create a global ID for everyone on the planet (sans China/Russia). &#0160;It&#39;s not a bit of paper or something you put in your wallet. &#0160;It&#39;ll be passive. &#0160;It&#39;ll replace your passport and driver&#39;s license. If you can be seen by a camera, you will be known. &#0160;</li> </ul> <p>Sincerely,</p> <p>John Robb</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>I recently ran into a European counter-terrorism expert who complained that it was getting very difficult to build a fake profile on Facebook. &#0160;Every time his team tried to set up a fake profile, it was shut down in less than 24 hours. &#0160;Here&#39;s why he ran into problems.</p> <ul> <li>Facebook has an initiative to prevent the creation fake accounts (something Facebook strangely calls&#0160;<em>recidivism). &#0160;</em></li> <li>This initiative is a small part of a larger overall effort being undertaken by Facebook, Google and others, to become what can best be described as fully functional global censorship and surveillance systems. &#0160;I know that people have been concerned about this for a while, but it&#39;s not speculation anymore folks. &#0160;It&#39;s here. &#0160;</li> <li>The surprising thing to me? &#0160;The US and nearly all of the governments of the world (outside of China and Russia) are pushing them to do it. &#0160;</li> </ul> <p><strong>A global censorship and surveillance platform</strong></p> <p>Here are some of the aspects of these efforts:</p> <ul> <li>AIs that can identify violent imagery and extremist symbols in videos and pictures and rapidly delete them -- or better yet, block their upload or shut down a livestream as soon as they show up. &#0160;For example: &#0160;a live broadcast during a terrorist attack or murder (both happened). &#0160;</li> <li>Routine censorship and surveillance. &#0160;For example: &#0160;Facebook has ~7,500 (largely low paid subcontractors) reading posts and (private) messages to find and delete content they deem objectionable and ban the people who post it. &#0160;However, these folks are just temporary employees. &#0160;The real goal is to build AIs that can read posts and messages to ID objectionable content to do what the human team (above) is already doing, but on a global scale. &#0160;</li> <li>A complete social graph. &#0160;A real-time census of every living person in the world (outside of China and Russia). &#0160;One that knows all about you, whether or not you are on Facebook/Google/etc. &#0160;These companies are already close to this goal in Europe and the US, and at 2 billion daily users (Facebook and Android), so it won&#39;t be long before they expand that to the rest of the world. &#0160;</li> </ul> <p><strong>Where is this Headed?</strong></p> <p>The decline of the US security framework at home and abroad, growing political and economic instability and widespread distrust/illegitimacy will make an expansion of this platform inevitable. &#0160;Let&#39;s look at this expansion from a couple of angles: &#0160;</p> <ul> <li>Already, the social networks are replacing the media as the gatekeepers and the shapers of national and global public opinion. &#0160;It&#39;s clear that the media can&#39;t play this role anymore, they are outgunned. To wit: millions watch TV news while billions get their news from Facebook. &#0160;How will they replace the media? &#0160;They will use AIs to subtly block, blur or bury fake or objectionable information and conversations while promoting those they approve of. &#0160;This process will become extremely apparent during the next presidential campaign. &#0160;It also suggests that we will see candidates from within these companies running for office in many countries, and given their edge in using these platforms: win.</li> <li>AI&#39;s built using real time and detailed social graph information could become better at detecting violent behavior far sooner and better than human analysts. &#0160;Simply, it may not matter if the attackers were using Facebook or Google, the ripples from their actions on adjacent social networks might be more than enough to detect them. &#0160;Pushing this forward even further, as the data flows and the depth of the information increases, how far down in the stack of violence could these AIs prove to be effective? &#0160;Down to domestic murders, abuse, and rape? &#0160; &#0160;</li> <li>A global ID. &#0160;Simply, Facebook is getting close to being able to create a global ID for everyone on the planet (sans China/Russia). &#0160;It&#39;s not a bit of paper or something you put in your wallet. &#0160;It&#39;ll be passive. &#0160;It&#39;ll replace your passport and driver&#39;s license. If you can be seen by a camera, you will be known. &#0160;</li> </ul> <p>Sincerely,</p> <p>John Robb</p> <p>&#0160;</p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e200d8341bf69853efGlobal Guerrillashttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e00d83451576d69e201b7c90e6ca7970b John Robb posted an entry http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2017-07-23T17:57:25Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e201b7c90e6ca5970bRobotic Systems Disruption in Practicehttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2017-07-23T17:57:24Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451576d69e2John Robbhttp://profile.typepad.com/johnrobb<p><a href="http://www.scout.com/military/warrior/story/1791949-russian-drones-attack-with-grenade-weapons">The Ukrainian SBU</a> now believes that the destruction of arms depot at Balakliya in March that did <a href="http://world.24-my.info/as-a-result-of-explosions-in-balakliya-ukraine-lost-ammunition-at-1-billion-pashinsky/"><em>a billion dollars</em></a> in damage was carried out by a small drone armed with a thermite grenade. &#0160;That&#39;s an ROI (Return on Investment) of $500,000 for every $1 invested (not bad relative to <a href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2004/07/journal_the_new.html">earlier</a> <a href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2007/09/mexico-roi-retu.html">comparatives</a>).</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b7c90e6b29970b-pi" style="display: inline;"><img alt="1-r8WqTYkXvdLdN1L00bUT3A" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b7c90e6b29970b img-responsive" src="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b7c90e6b29970b-500wi" title="1-r8WqTYkXvdLdN1L00bUT3A" /></a></p> <p>This is a spot on demonstration of what I wrote back in February of 2016. &#0160;Here&#39;s a recap of what I wrote in that article: &#0160;</p> <p>From a mechanical perspective, consumer drones aren&#39;t that impressive:</p> <ul> <li>~1-2 pound payload</li> <li>~20 min flight time&#0160;</li> <li>20-40 miles per hour flight speed</li> </ul> <p>However, these drones are smart and the smarter the drone is, the better it can mimic the performance of the much more expensive precision guided munition (PGM). &#0160;For example:</p> <ul> <li>Drones can fly themselves. &#0160;They can&#0160;take-off, fly enroute, and land autonomously.</li> <li>Drones can precisely navigate a course based on the GPS waypoints you designate.</li> <li>Drones can now (a recent development) use digital cameras to find, track, and follow objects. &#0160;Some can even land on objects they find based on a description of that object. &#0160;</li> </ul> <p>Even this basic capability is more than enough to turn a basic drone into an extremely dangerous first strike weapon against fragile/explosive targets. Here&#39;s a scenario that pits ten drones against a major airport: &#0160;</p> <ol> <li>Ten drones would take off autonomously in 1 minute intervals.</li> <li>Each would follow a GPS flightpath to a preselected portion of an airport.</li> <li>Upon arrival, a digital camera would identify the nearest wing of an aircraft.</li> <li>The drone would land itself in the middle of that wing.</li> <li>A pound of thermite in the payload would ignite upon landing. &#0160;</li> <li>The thermite would burn through the wing, igniting the fuel inside...</li> <li>Most of the airport and nearly all of the planes on the tarmac are destroyed.</li> </ol> <p>Here are the takeaways: &#0160;</p> <ul> <li>Even the simple robotic platforms of today can be extremely effective as weapons. &#0160;At current rates of improvement in machine intelligence, the situation will get much more interesting very, very soon.&#0160;</li> <li>It&#39;s possible to creatively trade inexpensive machine smarts for expensive mechanical performance. &#0160;</li> <li>We need to figure this out before the bad guys do. &#0160;However, truly figuring this out requires a deep insight into the dynamics driving this forward. &#0160;</li> </ul> <p>Sincerely,</p> <p>John Robb</p> <p>PS: &#0160;The Balakliya follows five earlier attacks on warehouses and even this facility since December 2016 using the same technique. &#0160;They are getting better.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><a href="http://www.scout.com/military/warrior/story/1791949-russian-drones-attack-with-grenade-weapons">The Ukrainian SBU</a> now believes that the destruction of arms depot at Balakliya in March that did <a href="http://world.24-my.info/as-a-result-of-explosions-in-balakliya-ukraine-lost-ammunition-at-1-billion-pashinsky/"><em>a billion dollars</em></a> in damage was carried out by a small drone armed with a thermite grenade. &#0160;That&#39;s an ROI (Return on Investment) of $500,000 for every $1 invested (not bad relative to <a href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2004/07/journal_the_new.html">earlier</a> <a href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2007/09/mexico-roi-retu.html">comparatives</a>).</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b7c90e6b29970b-pi" style="display: inline;"><img alt="1-r8WqTYkXvdLdN1L00bUT3A" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b7c90e6b29970b img-responsive" src="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b7c90e6b29970b-500wi" title="1-r8WqTYkXvdLdN1L00bUT3A" /></a></p> <p>This is a spot on demonstration of what I wrote back in February of 2016. &#0160;Here&#39;s a recap of what I wrote in that article: &#0160;</p> <p>From a mechanical perspective, consumer drones aren&#39;t that impressive:</p> <ul> <li>~1-2 pound payload</li> <li>~20 min flight time&#0160;</li> <li>20-40 miles per hour flight speed</li> </ul> <p>However, these drones are smart and the smarter the drone is, the better it can mimic the performance of the much more expensive precision guided munition (PGM). &#0160;For example:</p> <ul> <li>Drones can fly themselves. &#0160;They can&#0160;take-off, fly enroute, and land autonomously.</li> <li>Drones can precisely navigate a course based on the GPS waypoints you designate.</li> <li>Drones can now (a recent development) use digital cameras to find, track, and follow objects. &#0160;Some can even land on objects they find based on a description of that object. &#0160;</li> </ul> <p>Even this basic capability is more than enough to turn a basic drone into an extremely dangerous first strike weapon against fragile/explosive targets. Here&#39;s a scenario that pits ten drones against a major airport: &#0160;</p> <ol> <li>Ten drones would take off autonomously in 1 minute intervals.</li> <li>Each would follow a GPS flightpath to a preselected portion of an airport.</li> <li>Upon arrival, a digital camera would identify the nearest wing of an aircraft.</li> <li>The drone would land itself in the middle of that wing.</li> <li>A pound of thermite in the payload would ignite upon landing. &#0160;</li> <li>The thermite would burn through the wing, igniting the fuel inside...</li> <li>Most of the airport and nearly all of the planes on the tarmac are destroyed.</li> </ol> <p>Here are the takeaways: &#0160;</p> <ul> <li>Even the simple robotic platforms of today can be extremely effective as weapons. &#0160;At current rates of improvement in machine intelligence, the situation will get much more interesting very, very soon.&#0160;</li> <li>It&#39;s possible to creatively trade inexpensive machine smarts for expensive mechanical performance. &#0160;</li> <li>We need to figure this out before the bad guys do. &#0160;However, truly figuring this out requires a deep insight into the dynamics driving this forward. &#0160;</li> </ul> <p>Sincerely,</p> <p>John Robb</p> <p>PS: &#0160;The Balakliya follows five earlier attacks on warehouses and even this facility since December 2016 using the same technique. &#0160;They are getting better.</p> <p>&#0160;</p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e200d8341bf69853efGlobal Guerrillashttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e00d83451576d69e201bb09ae990d970d John Robb posted an entry http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2017-07-13T15:31:13Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e201bb09ae990b970dHow to turn the AI Economy into wealth, income, and pensions for millionshttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2017-07-13T15:31:13Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451576d69e2John Robbhttp://profile.typepad.com/johnrobb<p class="graf graf--p graf-after--h3" id="7045">Six years ago, I floated a business plan for building a new&#0160;<em class="markup--em markup--p-em">type</em>&#0160;of company (an open source venture). An open source venture is structured in a way that makes it possible for millions of worker/owners to collaborate on the construction of extremely valuable databases. That initial attempt wasn’t successful, with good reason:&#0160;<em class="markup--em markup--p-em">it was too early</em>. The databases that could be built weren’t as valuable as they needed to be to support millions of contributors and the system needed to manage decentralized ownership (the blockchain) was still in its infancy.</p> <p class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" id="e380">Things have changed. The rapid rise of AI (more specifically, deep learning/ConvNet), has turned massive, human labelled/curated, databases into some of the most valuable information on earth. Second, the blockchain is now mature enough to support the infrastructure needed to make it possible.</p> <p class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" id="b937">Here’s some more detail. Building AIs requires three things:</p> <ul class="postList"> <li class="graf graf--li graf-after--p">Scalable models of AI construction with high capacity (we have that now deep learning/ConvNet now).</li> <li class="graf graf--li graf-after--li">Lots of processing power (to train AIs). Moore’s law cracked the initial barrier to using these methods. Cloud based training systems filled with GPUs is making this less expensive.</li> <li class="graf graf--li graf-after--li">Big data sets (specifically, human curated data) are used by the AI’s to learn.</li> </ul> <p class="graf graf--p graf-after--li" id="bde6">You should already see the how well suited open source ventures filled with millions of worker owners fits into this process. For example:</p> <ul class="postList"> <li class="graf graf--li graf-after--p"><a class="markup--anchor markup--li-anchor" data-href="https://www.mturk.com/mturk/welcome" href="https://www.mturk.com/mturk/welcome" rel="noopener nofollow" target="_blank">A recent study by Google</a>&#0160;showed that the size of the training database correlated to the quality of the AI. The bigger the better. That’s a bit of a problem for the big tech companies. Currently, most of the of the databases currently available were built by very low cost workers for a fraction of a penny a label, using places like&#0160;<a class="markup--anchor markup--li-anchor" data-href="https://www.mturk.com/mturk/welcome" href="https://www.mturk.com/mturk/welcome" rel="noopener nofollow" target="_blank">Amazon’s Mechanical Turk</a>. That makes them clunky to build and difficult to scale. Further, the labelled, human curated data they do have (on Facebook, Google, etc.), while voluminous, isn’t complete enough to do high quality training. An open source venture fills the void. It could enlist millions of worker/owners to build, maintain and extend the data needed would be very successful here, creating some of the most valuable AIs in the world.</li> <li class="graf graf--li graf-after--li">The processing power needed to train these AIs, as they become more sophisticated, could outstrip current corporate capabilities (of even Google). This suggests that training systems that break apart the computation tasks among tens of millions of participants (cell phone/desktop) could surmount this barrier. In practice, it would be a combination of&#0160;<a class="markup--anchor markup--li-anchor" data-href="http://folding.stanford.edu/" href="http://folding.stanford.edu/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">folding@home</a>&#0160;and bitcoin mining. Already, deep learning AIs can “run” on cellphones. Configuring them to contribute to the training load and/or actively gather data for database construction isn’t that much of a stretch.</li> <li class="graf graf--li graf-after--li">The people participating (earning equity instead of fee for service for their contributions) could become very, very large. They would be familiar with the platform and become increasingly sophisticated at finding amazing ways to capture new data and new AIs to build. They would also be a built in audience of early adopters for new AIs, pushing them across the chasm into the mainstream and radically improving their operation due to the sophistication of their interaction with them. Over time, a platform like this could become the source of many (if not most) of the best AIs ever built. A source of immense wealth (seen as dividends) for hundreds of millions of owners, earning equity with each contribution.</li> </ul> <p class="graf graf--p graf-after--li" id="8941">Worth thinking about.</p> <p class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" id="09de">John Robb</p> <p class="graf graf--p graf-after--p graf--trailing" id="6f87">PS: Given our experience with bitcoin, this isn’t impossible to do. It’s also a much better future than a world that one based on&#0160;<a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" data-href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2014/12/the-road-to-turking.html" href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2014/12/the-road-to-turking.html" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Turking</a>&#0160;day laborers.</p> <p class="graf graf--p graf-after--h3" id="7045">Six years ago, I floated a business plan for building a new&#0160;<em class="markup--em markup--p-em">type</em>&#0160;of company (an open source venture). An open source venture is structured in a way that makes it possible for millions of worker/owners to collaborate on the construction of extremely valuable databases. That initial attempt wasn’t successful, with good reason:&#0160;<em class="markup--em markup--p-em">it was too early</em>. The databases that could be built weren’t as valuable as they needed to be to support millions of contributors and the system needed to manage decentralized ownership (the blockchain) was still in its infancy.</p> <p class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" id="e380">Things have changed. The rapid rise of AI (more specifically, deep learning/ConvNet), has turned massive, human labelled/curated, databases into some of the most valuable information on earth. Second, the blockchain is now mature enough to support the infrastructure needed to make it possible.</p> <p class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" id="b937">Here’s some more detail. Building AIs requires three things:</p> <ul class="postList"> <li class="graf graf--li graf-after--p">Scalable models of AI construction with high capacity (we have that now deep learning/ConvNet now).</li> <li class="graf graf--li graf-after--li">Lots of processing power (to train AIs). Moore’s law cracked the initial barrier to using these methods. Cloud based training systems filled with GPUs is making this less expensive.</li> <li class="graf graf--li graf-after--li">Big data sets (specifically, human curated data) are used by the AI’s to learn.</li> </ul> <p class="graf graf--p graf-after--li" id="bde6">You should already see the how well suited open source ventures filled with millions of worker owners fits into this process. For example:</p> <ul class="postList"> <li class="graf graf--li graf-after--p"><a class="markup--anchor markup--li-anchor" data-href="https://www.mturk.com/mturk/welcome" href="https://www.mturk.com/mturk/welcome" rel="noopener nofollow" target="_blank">A recent study by Google</a>&#0160;showed that the size of the training database correlated to the quality of the AI. The bigger the better. That’s a bit of a problem for the big tech companies. Currently, most of the of the databases currently available were built by very low cost workers for a fraction of a penny a label, using places like&#0160;<a class="markup--anchor markup--li-anchor" data-href="https://www.mturk.com/mturk/welcome" href="https://www.mturk.com/mturk/welcome" rel="noopener nofollow" target="_blank">Amazon’s Mechanical Turk</a>. That makes them clunky to build and difficult to scale. Further, the labelled, human curated data they do have (on Facebook, Google, etc.), while voluminous, isn’t complete enough to do high quality training. An open source venture fills the void. It could enlist millions of worker/owners to build, maintain and extend the data needed would be very successful here, creating some of the most valuable AIs in the world.</li> <li class="graf graf--li graf-after--li">The processing power needed to train these AIs, as they become more sophisticated, could outstrip current corporate capabilities (of even Google). This suggests that training systems that break apart the computation tasks among tens of millions of participants (cell phone/desktop) could surmount this barrier. In practice, it would be a combination of&#0160;<a class="markup--anchor markup--li-anchor" data-href="http://folding.stanford.edu/" href="http://folding.stanford.edu/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">folding@home</a>&#0160;and bitcoin mining. Already, deep learning AIs can “run” on cellphones. Configuring them to contribute to the training load and/or actively gather data for database construction isn’t that much of a stretch.</li> <li class="graf graf--li graf-after--li">The people participating (earning equity instead of fee for service for their contributions) could become very, very large. They would be familiar with the platform and become increasingly sophisticated at finding amazing ways to capture new data and new AIs to build. They would also be a built in audience of early adopters for new AIs, pushing them across the chasm into the mainstream and radically improving their operation due to the sophistication of their interaction with them. Over time, a platform like this could become the source of many (if not most) of the best AIs ever built. A source of immense wealth (seen as dividends) for hundreds of millions of owners, earning equity with each contribution.</li> </ul> <p class="graf graf--p graf-after--li" id="8941">Worth thinking about.</p> <p class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" id="09de">John Robb</p> <p class="graf graf--p graf-after--p graf--trailing" id="6f87">PS: Given our experience with bitcoin, this isn’t impossible to do. It’s also a much better future than a world that one based on&#0160;<a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" data-href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2014/12/the-road-to-turking.html" href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2014/12/the-road-to-turking.html" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Turking</a>&#0160;day laborers.</p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e200d8341bf69853efGlobal Guerrillashttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e00d83451576d69e201b8d295af06970c John Robb posted an entry http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2017-07-13T13:28:58Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e201b8d295af03970cJOURNAL: Some actionable information on rising sea levelshttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2017-07-13T13:28:58Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451576d69e2John Robbhttp://profile.typepad.com/johnrobb<p>It&#39;s a pretty good bet we&#39;re going to see a rise in sea levels (we already have). &#0160; Here&#39;s a <a href="http://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/attach/2017/07/when-rising-seas-hit-home-full-report.pdf">good report</a> by the Union of Concerned Scientists with some much needed detail on how it will impact us.</p> <p>How it will do damage: &#0160;Rising sea levels will have its greatest impact in terms of chronic tidal flooding. &#0160;Basically, every couple of years, the first floor of your house is filled with seawater destroying everything.</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b7c90b577f970b-pi"><img alt="Chronic high tied" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b7c90b577f970b img-responsive" src="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b7c90b577f970b-500wi" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Chronic high tied" /></a></p> <p>Where will chronic flooding occur? &#0160;Three maps. &#0160;The first one is an intermediate scenario for 2035 (less than 20 years out) and second is one for 2060.</p> <div class="photo-wrap photo-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b7c90b5711970b" id="photo-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b7c90b5711970b" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; width: 500px;"><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b7c90b5711970b-pi"><img alt="Inundated" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b7c90b5711970b img-responsive" src="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b7c90b5711970b-500wi" title="Inundated" /></a></div> <div class="photo-wrap photo-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b7c90b5711970b" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; width: 500px;"> <div class="photo-caption caption-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b7c90b5711970b" id="caption-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b7c90b5711970b">Expected by 2035</div> </div> <p>Note that the impact by 2035 is mostly in four areas (DE, FL, LA, and NC). &#0160; &#0160;By 2060, that damage deepens and expands considerably. &#0160;It turns almost all of the eastern (including NYC and Boston) and southern coasts into chronic tidal flood zones.&#0160;</p> <div class="photo-wrap photo-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b7c90b584f970b" id="photo-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b7c90b584f970b" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; width: 500px;"><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b7c90b584f970b-pi"><img alt="Inundated 2060" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b7c90b584f970b img-responsive" src="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b7c90b584f970b-500wi" title="Inundated 2060" /></a> <div class="photo-caption caption-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b7c90b584f970b" id="caption-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b7c90b584f970b">Expected by 2060</div> </div> <p>Here&#39;s the last. &#0160;2100. &#0160;Note that even by 2100 chronic tidal flooding is largely a eastern/southern coast problem. &#0160;The West coast does relatively well. &#0160;<br /><br /></p> <div class="photo-wrap photo-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b7c90b5920970b" id="photo-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b7c90b5920970b" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; width: 500px;"><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b7c90b5920970b-pi"><img alt="2100" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b7c90b5920970b img-responsive" src="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b7c90b5920970b-500wi" title="2100" /></a> <div class="photo-caption caption-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b7c90b5920970b" id="caption-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b7c90b5920970b">Expected by 2100</div> </div> <p>Hope this actionable information helps you make better decisions (or at a minimum, let&#39;s you effectively process the news this situation will produce). &#0160;</p> <p>John Robb</p> <p>It&#39;s a pretty good bet we&#39;re going to see a rise in sea levels (we already have). &#0160; Here&#39;s a <a href="http://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/attach/2017/07/when-rising-seas-hit-home-full-report.pdf">good report</a> by the Union of Concerned Scientists with some much needed detail on how it will impact us.</p> <p>How it will do damage: &#0160;Rising sea levels will have its greatest impact in terms of chronic tidal flooding. &#0160;Basically, every couple of years, the first floor of your house is filled with seawater destroying everything.</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b7c90b577f970b-pi"><img alt="Chronic high tied" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b7c90b577f970b img-responsive" src="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b7c90b577f970b-500wi" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Chronic high tied" /></a></p> <p>Where will chronic flooding occur? &#0160;Three maps. &#0160;The first one is an intermediate scenario for 2035 (less than 20 years out) and second is one for 2060.</p> <div class="photo-wrap photo-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b7c90b5711970b" id="photo-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b7c90b5711970b" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; width: 500px;"><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b7c90b5711970b-pi"><img alt="Inundated" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b7c90b5711970b img-responsive" src="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b7c90b5711970b-500wi" title="Inundated" /></a></div> <div class="photo-wrap photo-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b7c90b5711970b" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; width: 500px;"> <div class="photo-caption caption-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b7c90b5711970b" id="caption-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b7c90b5711970b">Expected by 2035</div> </div> <p>Note that the impact by 2035 is mostly in four areas (DE, FL, LA, and NC). &#0160; &#0160;By 2060, that damage deepens and expands considerably. &#0160;It turns almost all of the eastern (including NYC and Boston) and southern coasts into chronic tidal flood zones.&#0160;</p> <div class="photo-wrap photo-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b7c90b584f970b" id="photo-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b7c90b584f970b" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; width: 500px;"><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b7c90b584f970b-pi"><img alt="Inundated 2060" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b7c90b584f970b img-responsive" src="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b7c90b584f970b-500wi" title="Inundated 2060" /></a> <div class="photo-caption caption-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b7c90b584f970b" id="caption-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b7c90b584f970b">Expected by 2060</div> </div> <p>Here&#39;s the last. &#0160;2100. &#0160;Note that even by 2100 chronic tidal flooding is largely a eastern/southern coast problem. &#0160;The West coast does relatively well. &#0160;<br /><br /></p> <div class="photo-wrap photo-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b7c90b5920970b" id="photo-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b7c90b5920970b" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; width: 500px;"><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b7c90b5920970b-pi"><img alt="2100" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b7c90b5920970b img-responsive" src="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b7c90b5920970b-500wi" title="2100" /></a> <div class="photo-caption caption-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b7c90b5920970b" id="caption-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b7c90b5920970b">Expected by 2100</div> </div> <p>Hope this actionable information helps you make better decisions (or at a minimum, let&#39;s you effectively process the news this situation will produce). &#0160;</p> <p>John Robb</p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e200d8341bf69853efGlobal Guerrillashttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e00d83451576d69e201b7c9026648970b John Robb posted an entry http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2017-06-14T13:43:04Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e201b7c9026646970bIdea: The Automation of Terrorismhttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2017-06-14T13:43:03Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451576d69e2John Robbhttp://profile.typepad.com/johnrobb<p>I figured out what I&#39;m going to talk about at the Prime Minister&#39;s conference in Singapore next month: &#0160;the <em>automation</em> of terrorism. &#0160;Here&#39;s the outline of what I&#39;m going to discuss (I already have most of the thinking on this topic already done and the trend is already in motion).</p> <p>____________</p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">New technologies have put us on the brink of a significant upgrade to extremist violence. &#0160;Specifically, it may now be possible to fully automate a terrorist attack or worse, a terrorist network. &#0160;Here’s how:</span></p> <p><strong>Social networking</strong><span style="font-weight: 400;"> already connects billions of people worldwide and it is rewiring us psychosocially. &#0160;We can already see the disruptive effects of this, creating an environment conducive to extremism:</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"><br /></span></p> <ul> <li><span style="font-weight: 400;">It made it possible to topple governments across the Middle East. </span></li> <li><span style="font-weight: 400;">It enabled ISIS to recruit 30,000 people from across the world. &#0160;</span></li> <li><span style="font-weight: 400;">It made the very rapid shift to self-activated terrorism (over the last year) possible.</span></li> </ul> <p><strong>Bots</strong><span style="font-weight: 400;"> (software) build make it possible to automate extremist activities on and across social networks (as seen in the recent US election).</span></p> <ul> <li><span style="font-weight: 400;">Bots have demonstrated the spread and amplification of extremist disinfo. &#0160;</span></li> <li><span style="font-weight: 400;">Bots can shape public discourse online. </span></li> <li><span style="font-weight: 400;">AI fueled bots will make it possible to completely automate the recruitment, grooming and activation of extremists. &#0160;</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"><br /></span></li> </ul> <p><strong>Drones</strong><span style="font-weight: 400;"> (hardware bots) make it possible to automate physical attacks. &#0160;With relatively simple DIY modifications, drones can already:</span></p> <ul> <li><span style="font-weight: 400;">Carry a payload large enough to cause significant damage.</span></li> <li><span style="font-weight: 400;">Fly and navigate to a target w/o human support.</span></li> <li><span style="font-weight: 400;">Visually identify targets and take action autonomously.</span></li> </ul> <p>Sincerely,</p> <p>John Robb</p> <p>Written on a cool summer morning near &quot;the shot heard around the world&quot;</p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">PS: &#0160;Automation of this type has the potential to leverage (on a grand scale) <a href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2017/06/the-common-driver-of-public-violence.html">the breakdown of masculinity</a> in the West to disruptive effect. &#0160;</span></p> <p>I figured out what I&#39;m going to talk about at the Prime Minister&#39;s conference in Singapore next month: &#0160;the <em>automation</em> of terrorism. &#0160;Here&#39;s the outline of what I&#39;m going to discuss (I already have most of the thinking on this topic already done and the trend is already in motion).</p> <p>____________</p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">New technologies have put us on the brink of a significant upgrade to extremist violence. &#0160;Specifically, it may now be possible to fully automate a terrorist attack or worse, a terrorist network. &#0160;Here’s how:</span></p> <p><strong>Social networking</strong><span style="font-weight: 400;"> already connects billions of people worldwide and it is rewiring us psychosocially. &#0160;We can already see the disruptive effects of this, creating an environment conducive to extremism:</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"><br /></span></p> <ul> <li><span style="font-weight: 400;">It made it possible to topple governments across the Middle East. </span></li> <li><span style="font-weight: 400;">It enabled ISIS to recruit 30,000 people from across the world. &#0160;</span></li> <li><span style="font-weight: 400;">It made the very rapid shift to self-activated terrorism (over the last year) possible.</span></li> </ul> <p><strong>Bots</strong><span style="font-weight: 400;"> (software) build make it possible to automate extremist activities on and across social networks (as seen in the recent US election).</span></p> <ul> <li><span style="font-weight: 400;">Bots have demonstrated the spread and amplification of extremist disinfo. &#0160;</span></li> <li><span style="font-weight: 400;">Bots can shape public discourse online. </span></li> <li><span style="font-weight: 400;">AI fueled bots will make it possible to completely automate the recruitment, grooming and activation of extremists. &#0160;</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"><br /></span></li> </ul> <p><strong>Drones</strong><span style="font-weight: 400;"> (hardware bots) make it possible to automate physical attacks. &#0160;With relatively simple DIY modifications, drones can already:</span></p> <ul> <li><span style="font-weight: 400;">Carry a payload large enough to cause significant damage.</span></li> <li><span style="font-weight: 400;">Fly and navigate to a target w/o human support.</span></li> <li><span style="font-weight: 400;">Visually identify targets and take action autonomously.</span></li> </ul> <p>Sincerely,</p> <p>John Robb</p> <p>Written on a cool summer morning near &quot;the shot heard around the world&quot;</p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">PS: &#0160;Automation of this type has the potential to leverage (on a grand scale) <a href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2017/06/the-common-driver-of-public-violence.html">the breakdown of masculinity</a> in the West to disruptive effect. &#0160;</span></p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e200d8341bf69853efGlobal Guerrillashttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e00d83451576d69e201b7c8ff9592970b John Robb posted an entry http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2017-06-05T20:47:09Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e201b7c8ff9590970bThe Common Driver of Public Violencehttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2017-06-05T20:47:09Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451576d69e2John Robbhttp://profile.typepad.com/johnrobb<p>Mass killings in London, Portland, and Orlando over the last seven days (occurring at an increasing rate). &#0160; We have categories for each type of attack:</p> <ul> <li>London: &#0160;Homegrown Jihadi terrorist attack.</li> <li>Portland: &#0160;Hate crime murders.</li> <li>Orlando: &#0160;Lethal postal rage in the workplace.</li> </ul> <p>If we examine each category by itself, it&#39;s hard to determine any underlying factors common to the attack of that type. &#0160;Jihadi terrorism has lots of contributing factors.&#0160;</p> <p>However, if we pop up a level and look at all of the attacks together a pattern emerges.&#0160;</p> <p>All of them are a product of failed men. &#0160;Men who have failed in the world. &#0160;Men tied up with crime, drugs, low paying jobs, unemployment, failed marriages, etc. &#0160;</p> <p>Men who do not have the psychological strength to bounce back from adversity. &#0160;Men who are in deep psychological pain.</p> <p>These failed men are:</p> <ul> <li>Searching for redemption (a chance to become a holy warrior and become a man).</li> <li>Trying to boost their status by attacking people they view as inferior.</li> <li>Raging at God and the world by killing people the people they know (wife, kids, employers). &#0160;</li> </ul> <p>This psychological distress is real and it&#39;s getting worse (add to this the 50,000 people killing themselves every year through overdoses). &#0160;</p> <p>What&#39;s causing so much fail in the west? &#0160;The death of positive masculinity and everything attached to it.</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201bb09a2a6e6970d-pi"><img alt="DBaB1TRXYAE3CqJ" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201bb09a2a6e6970d img-responsive" src="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201bb09a2a6e6970d-320wi" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="DBaB1TRXYAE3CqJ" /></a></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Mass killings in London, Portland, and Orlando over the last seven days (occurring at an increasing rate). &#0160; We have categories for each type of attack:</p> <ul> <li>London: &#0160;Homegrown Jihadi terrorist attack.</li> <li>Portland: &#0160;Hate crime murders.</li> <li>Orlando: &#0160;Lethal postal rage in the workplace.</li> </ul> <p>If we examine each category by itself, it&#39;s hard to determine any underlying factors common to the attack of that type. &#0160;Jihadi terrorism has lots of contributing factors.&#0160;</p> <p>However, if we pop up a level and look at all of the attacks together a pattern emerges.&#0160;</p> <p>All of them are a product of failed men. &#0160;Men who have failed in the world. &#0160;Men tied up with crime, drugs, low paying jobs, unemployment, failed marriages, etc. &#0160;</p> <p>Men who do not have the psychological strength to bounce back from adversity. &#0160;Men who are in deep psychological pain.</p> <p>These failed men are:</p> <ul> <li>Searching for redemption (a chance to become a holy warrior and become a man).</li> <li>Trying to boost their status by attacking people they view as inferior.</li> <li>Raging at God and the world by killing people the people they know (wife, kids, employers). &#0160;</li> </ul> <p>This psychological distress is real and it&#39;s getting worse (add to this the 50,000 people killing themselves every year through overdoses). &#0160;</p> <p>What&#39;s causing so much fail in the west? &#0160;The death of positive masculinity and everything attached to it.</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201bb09a2a6e6970d-pi"><img alt="DBaB1TRXYAE3CqJ" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201bb09a2a6e6970d img-responsive" src="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201bb09a2a6e6970d-320wi" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="DBaB1TRXYAE3CqJ" /></a></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e200d8341bf69853efGlobal Guerrillashttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e00d83451576d69e201bb09a29de8970d John Robb posted an entry http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2017-06-05T18:39:38Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e201bb09a29de6970dSigns of Deep Psychological Distress in America http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2017-06-05T18:39:38Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451576d69e2John Robbhttp://profile.typepad.com/johnrobb<p>&#0160;</p> <p>Here&#39;s an indicator that Americans are suffering from deep psychological distress.&#0160;</p> <p style="text-align: center;">Americans are killing themselves in record numbers. &#0160;</p> <p>The method of choice? &#0160;Overdose. &#0160;</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201bb09a29a3b970d-pi"><img alt="Cdcwonder2016_1" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201bb09a29a3b970d img-responsive" src="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201bb09a29a3b970d-320wi" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Cdcwonder2016_1" /></a>This year, there will be over 50,000 deaths due to overdoses in the US and it&#39;s still climbing. &#0160;</p> <ul> <li>That&#39;s already the lethal equivalent to the US of a Vietnam war every year or WW2 every eight years.&#0160;</li> <li>It&#39;s already twice as lethal to Americans as accidental deaths from automobiles. &#0160;&#0160;</li> <li>The majority of the deaths are of people 35-54 and it impacts both men and women. &#0160;It also leaves millions of friends and family members with PTSD in its wake.</li> </ul> <p>This level of self-harm isn&#39;t simply due to the wide availability of prescription drugs (particularly since the rate falls precipitously with older Americans). &#0160;</p> <p>The reason runs deeper. &#0160; It suggests deep psychological pain. &#0160;A gnawing pain that is being manifested in our politics and in the increasing amount of public violence we are seeing.</p> <p>A pain due to society that has deprecated all of the deep psychological building blocks that make us viable social connected human beings. &#0160;They were thrown away as if they were simply constructs of our imagination rather than evolved system that have proven their worth to our collective survival over millions of years. &#0160;</p> <p>The last time this occurred we ended up in a 70 year struggle than nearly put global civilization on a millenia hiatus. &#0160;This time? &#0160;I&#39;m not so sure.</p> <p>John Robb</p> <p>June 2017 - A rainy New England&#0160;</p> <p>PS: &#0160;All of this is made worse in the US/Anglo economic system. &#0160;Why? &#0160;It&#39;s become increasingly ruthless, rigged, and distorted. &#0160;That has put even more pressure on individuals to become resiliently bounce back from adversity. &#0160;Unfortunately, mental resilience is predicated on a mind built on solid ground, not sand like it is today.</p> <p>PPS: &#0160;How do we get through this intact? &#0160;My gut suggests the only social structure that will allow us to progress beyond this impasse is one that enables increased psychological diversity while at the same time aggressively preserving traditional paths of meaning. &#0160; We should avoid at all costs seeing this as a struggle between oppressive identities or as a corruption of tradition that should be ruthlessly eradicated. &#0160;A more complex middle ground that allows both to flourish is only way to avoid history&#39;s abattoir. &#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Here&#39;s an indicator that Americans are suffering from deep psychological distress.&#0160;</p> <p style="text-align: center;">Americans are killing themselves in record numbers. &#0160;</p> <p>The method of choice? &#0160;Overdose. &#0160;</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201bb09a29a3b970d-pi"><img alt="Cdcwonder2016_1" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201bb09a29a3b970d img-responsive" src="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201bb09a29a3b970d-320wi" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Cdcwonder2016_1" /></a>This year, there will be over 50,000 deaths due to overdoses in the US and it&#39;s still climbing. &#0160;</p> <ul> <li>That&#39;s already the lethal equivalent to the US of a Vietnam war every year or WW2 every eight years.&#0160;</li> <li>It&#39;s already twice as lethal to Americans as accidental deaths from automobiles. &#0160;&#0160;</li> <li>The majority of the deaths are of people 35-54 and it impacts both men and women. &#0160;It also leaves millions of friends and family members with PTSD in its wake.</li> </ul> <p>This level of self-harm isn&#39;t simply due to the wide availability of prescription drugs (particularly since the rate falls precipitously with older Americans). &#0160;</p> <p>The reason runs deeper. &#0160; It suggests deep psychological pain. &#0160;A gnawing pain that is being manifested in our politics and in the increasing amount of public violence we are seeing.</p> <p>A pain due to society that has deprecated all of the deep psychological building blocks that make us viable social connected human beings. &#0160;They were thrown away as if they were simply constructs of our imagination rather than evolved system that have proven their worth to our collective survival over millions of years. &#0160;</p> <p>The last time this occurred we ended up in a 70 year struggle than nearly put global civilization on a millenia hiatus. &#0160;This time? &#0160;I&#39;m not so sure.</p> <p>John Robb</p> <p>June 2017 - A rainy New England&#0160;</p> <p>PS: &#0160;All of this is made worse in the US/Anglo economic system. &#0160;Why? &#0160;It&#39;s become increasingly ruthless, rigged, and distorted. &#0160;That has put even more pressure on individuals to become resiliently bounce back from adversity. &#0160;Unfortunately, mental resilience is predicated on a mind built on solid ground, not sand like it is today.</p> <p>PPS: &#0160;How do we get through this intact? &#0160;My gut suggests the only social structure that will allow us to progress beyond this impasse is one that enables increased psychological diversity while at the same time aggressively preserving traditional paths of meaning. &#0160; We should avoid at all costs seeing this as a struggle between oppressive identities or as a corruption of tradition that should be ruthlessly eradicated. &#0160;A more complex middle ground that allows both to flourish is only way to avoid history&#39;s abattoir. &#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e200d8341bf69853efGlobal Guerrillashttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e00d83451576d69e201b8d288b610970c John Robb posted an entry http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2017-06-02T15:11:11Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e201b8d288b60d970c "Man is dead, and we have killed him, you and I!"http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2017-06-02T15:11:11Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451576d69e2John Robbhttp://profile.typepad.com/johnrobb<p>In<em> <a href="https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0679724656/ref=nosim/globalguerril-20">Die fröhliche&#0160;Wissenschaft</a></em>, Nietzsche proclaimed &quot;God&#0160;is dead, and we have killed him, you and <a class="asset-img-link" href="https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0679724656/ref=nosim/globalguerril-20" style="float: left;"><img alt="FW82" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b8d288afe7970c img-responsive" src="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b8d288afe7970c-120wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="FW82" /></a>I!&quot; &#0160;</p> <p>Even back in the late 1800&#39;s, Nietzsche had the genius to see that science was in the process of killing God and with it Christian morality. &#0160;</p> <p>What was the result? &#0160; Deep psychological trauma and a vacuum of meaning. &#0160;That vacuum was filled by&#0160;tribal nihilism (fascism) and economic utopianism (communism). Movements that almost turned the 20th Century into our last as a species.</p> <p>Unfortunately, it appears that western society is in the process of killing something of equal import in this century. &#0160;Something that has been a foundational building block of the psychology of our species for millions of years. &#0160;Something that IS causing a vacuum of meaning and deep psychological trauma.</p> <p>We are killing masculinity. &#0160;Maleness in all its forms has been deprecated as an outdated bit of software. &#0160;Something to be rewritten for the modern world. &#0160;</p> <p>However, it&#39;s not something that is easily rewritten. &#0160;It&#39;s part of us, both individually and as a group, at a deep structural level. &#0160;A foundational building block that has proved advantageous to our survival over millions of years of human social evolution. &#0160;</p> <p>It&#39;s in the kernel&#0160;of our social being. &#0160;This makes trying to rewrite it on the fly akin to rewriting the software on a modern jet aircraft travelling at mach 3. &#0160;It&#39;s not only impossibly difficult, it&#39;s existentially dangerous for everyone onboard (all of us).</p> <p>Regardless, we&#39;re rewriting it and we can already see its ill effects. &#0160; We can see it in the deep psychological distress it is causing in men <em>and</em> women. &#0160;We can see a vacuum of meaning forming all around us. &#0160;A void that new social movements are <em>starting</em> to fill from the online tribal nihilism that propelled&#0160;Trump into the oval office to&#0160;identity utopians who are being manufactured by the millions in US Universities. &#0160;</p> <p>As it stands right now, we&#39;re likely screwed. &#0160;If the last Century is any guide, it&#39;s going to require oceans of blood to resolve this loss...</p> <p>John Robb</p> <p>June 2017</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>In<em> <a href="https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0679724656/ref=nosim/globalguerril-20">Die fröhliche&#0160;Wissenschaft</a></em>, Nietzsche proclaimed &quot;God&#0160;is dead, and we have killed him, you and <a class="asset-img-link" href="https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0679724656/ref=nosim/globalguerril-20" style="float: left;"><img alt="FW82" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b8d288afe7970c img-responsive" src="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b8d288afe7970c-120wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="FW82" /></a>I!&quot; &#0160;</p> <p>Even back in the late 1800&#39;s, Nietzsche had the genius to see that science was in the process of killing God and with it Christian morality. &#0160;</p> <p>What was the result? &#0160; Deep psychological trauma and a vacuum of meaning. &#0160;That vacuum was filled by&#0160;tribal nihilism (fascism) and economic utopianism (communism). Movements that almost turned the 20th Century into our last as a species.</p> <p>Unfortunately, it appears that western society is in the process of killing something of equal import in this century. &#0160;Something that has been a foundational building block of the psychology of our species for millions of years. &#0160;Something that IS causing a vacuum of meaning and deep psychological trauma.</p> <p>We are killing masculinity. &#0160;Maleness in all its forms has been deprecated as an outdated bit of software. &#0160;Something to be rewritten for the modern world. &#0160;</p> <p>However, it&#39;s not something that is easily rewritten. &#0160;It&#39;s part of us, both individually and as a group, at a deep structural level. &#0160;A foundational building block that has proved advantageous to our survival over millions of years of human social evolution. &#0160;</p> <p>It&#39;s in the kernel&#0160;of our social being. &#0160;This makes trying to rewrite it on the fly akin to rewriting the software on a modern jet aircraft travelling at mach 3. &#0160;It&#39;s not only impossibly difficult, it&#39;s existentially dangerous for everyone onboard (all of us).</p> <p>Regardless, we&#39;re rewriting it and we can already see its ill effects. &#0160; We can see it in the deep psychological distress it is causing in men <em>and</em> women. &#0160;We can see a vacuum of meaning forming all around us. &#0160;A void that new social movements are <em>starting</em> to fill from the online tribal nihilism that propelled&#0160;Trump into the oval office to&#0160;identity utopians who are being manufactured by the millions in US Universities. &#0160;</p> <p>As it stands right now, we&#39;re likely screwed. &#0160;If the last Century is any guide, it&#39;s going to require oceans of blood to resolve this loss...</p> <p>John Robb</p> <p>June 2017</p> <p>&#0160;</p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e200d8341bf69853efGlobal Guerrillashttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e00d83451576d69e201b7c8ec53cf970b John Robb posted an entry http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2017-04-11T17:22:55Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e201bb098f6842970dHow Algorithms and Authoritarianism Created a Corporate Nightmare at Unitedhttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2017-04-11T17:22:55Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451576d69e2John Robbhttp://profile.typepad.com/johnrobb<p style="text-align: center;"><em>&quot;I was only following corporate algorithms&quot;</em></p> <p style="text-align: center;">Testimony given at a future war crimes trial (riff on the Nuremberg defense)</p> <p>United Airlines forcibly removed a man from an &quot;overbooked&quot; flight. &#0160;The incident was captured on video by other passengers and the story went viral&#0160;on the social networks. &#0160;United flubbed its response to incident, adding fuel to the anger. &#0160;The story went global overnight, sparking massive outrage (hundreds of millions of views in China, an important market for United). &#0160;The next day, United&#0160;stock gets hammered, losing ~$1.4 billion off its stock price by midday. &#0160; What happened? &#0160;This incident is a pretty good example of how rigid algorithmic and authoritarian decision making can create corporate disasters in an age dominated by social networking.</p> <p><strong>Algorithms</strong></p> <p>Here&#39;s how the algorithmic decision making created the incident on United.</p> <ul> <li>United employees board a full flight from Chicago to Louisville. &#0160;A United flight crew headed to Louisville arrives at the gate at the last moment. &#0160;A <strong>corporate scheduling algorithm</strong> decides that the deadheading flight crew has priority over passenger fares and that it needs to remove four passengers to make room for them (the flight wasn&#39;t overbooked). &#0160;<br /><br /></li> <li>United asks for volunteers. &#0160;A <strong>corporate financial algorithm</strong> authorizes gate employees to offer passengers up to $800 to take a later flight (offering a bigger incentive wasn&#39;t an option). &#0160;No passenger takes them up on that offer. &#0160;<br /><br /></li> <li>United now shifts to removing passengers from the flight non-voluntarily. &#0160;To determine who gets removed from the aircraft, United runs a <strong>customer value algorithm</strong>. &#0160;This algorithm calculates&#0160;the value of each passenger based on frequent flyer status, the price of the ticket, connecting flights, etc. &#0160;The customers with the lowest value to United are flagged for removal from the flight (it wasn&#39;t a random selection).</li> </ul> <p><strong>Authoritarianism</strong></p> <p>Here&#39;s how authoritarian decision making (common on modern air travel) made things worse. &#0160;Note how this type of decision making escalates the problem rapidly.</p> <ul> <li>The United flight crew approaches the four passengers identified by the corporate algorithm and tells them to deplane. &#0160;Three of the people designated get off the flight as ordered. &#0160;One refuses. &#0160;Since disobeyal of instructions from&#0160;the flight crew is not tolerated in post 9/11 air travel, the incident is escalated to the next level.<br /><br /></li> <li>United employees call the airport police to remove the passenger. &#0160;The airport police arrived to remove the unruly (he disobeyed orders) passenger. &#0160;The passenger disobeys the order from the airport police to deplane. &#0160;Disobeyal of an order by a police officer rapidly escalates to violence. &#0160;The police then remove the passenger by force (the video of this is shared on social media).<br /><br /></li> <li>The CEO of United Airlines rapidly responds: &#0160;&quot;While I deeply regret this situation arose, I also emphatically stand behind all of you, and I want to commend you for continuing to go above and beyond...&quot; &#0160;In short, the CEO praises his employees for following the corporate algorithms and for not backing down when their authority to remove a passenger was questioned (which resulted in more negative backlash on social networks)&gt;&#0160;</li> </ul> <p><strong>&#0160;What this means for Organizations</strong></p> <p>As you can see,<em> United was&#0160;designed to fail in a world connected by social networking and they are not alone. &#0160;</em>Let&#39;s recap. &#0160;United employees blindly followed the decision making of algorithms up to the point of telling seated passengers to deplane. &#0160;The authoritarian decision making that followed was just as rigid and unyielding. &#0160;Disobeying orders of the flight crew led to the police. &#0160;Disobeying the police led to forced removal. &#0160;Finally, the public failure of this process led United&#39;s CEO to praise&#0160;employees for their rigid adherence to algorithmic and authoritarian decision making. &#0160;The entire process&#0160;was inevitable. &#0160;It&#39;s also not a unique situation. &#0160;We&#39;re going to see much more of this in the future as algorithms and authoritarianism grow in America. &#0160;Here&#39;s how organizations are likely to respond:</p> <ul> <li>Human decision making escape valves. &#0160;Smart organizations will build escape valves into the algorithms used to dictate employee behavior. &#0160;In other words, if an algorithmic process is going terribly wrong, it should be OK for an employee to find a non-standard way to solve it or ask for help. &#0160;One way to jumpstart the process is to build a 24x7 &quot;rapid response team&quot; that can swoop in electronically (smart phone) to coach onsite employees on ways to response (and authorizing extremely non-standard responses on the spot).<br /><br /></li> <li>Avoid authoritarian escalation at all costs. &#0160;Once initiated, authoritarian decision making (comply!) can result in violent escalation. &#0160;That&#39;s bad news in a socially networked world as we have seen, again and again. &#0160;How will this play out? &#0160;Bad organizations will increasingly try to find ways to blame the victim. &#0160;For example, by saying the plane can&#39;t take off until this bad/sad man leaves OR deplaning all of the passengers in order to remove a&#0160;non-compliant&#0160;passenger by force in private. &#0160;Smarter organizations will respond by finding ways to completely decouple business decisions from authoritarian escalation. &#0160;For example: &#0160;by radically increasing the voluntary behavioral incentives as needed or by asking for <em>other</em> passengers to help out the&#0160;passenger in trouble (as in: &#0160;this man is a doctor and needs to get back to see patients, can anyone help us keep him on the flight?). &#0160;<br /><br /></li> <li>Admit it and fix it. &#0160;If a corporate algorithm yields a terrible result, smart organizations admit the failure. &#0160;They admit it didn&#39;t work to both your&#0160;<em>customers and employees</em>. &#0160;Algorithms don&#39;t have feelings. &#0160;They won&#39;t cry if you talk trash about them. &#0160;Also, smart organizations don&#39;t punish employees for raising the flag on a broken algorithm. &#0160;One last thought. &#0160;Smart organizations know what their algorithms are (or that they even exist) and how to fix them. &#0160;Dumb organizations see the process as inviable. &#0160;It should be easy to spot the difference between these organizations by the number of disasters seen online,</li> </ul> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>John Robb</p> <p>Writing on a gloriously sunny day in New England</p> <p style="text-align: center;"><em>&quot;I was only following corporate algorithms&quot;</em></p> <p style="text-align: center;">Testimony given at a future war crimes trial (riff on the Nuremberg defense)</p> <p>United Airlines forcibly removed a man from an &quot;overbooked&quot; flight. &#0160;The incident was captured on video by other passengers and the story went viral&#0160;on the social networks. &#0160;United flubbed its response to incident, adding fuel to the anger. &#0160;The story went global overnight, sparking massive outrage (hundreds of millions of views in China, an important market for United). &#0160;The next day, United&#0160;stock gets hammered, losing ~$1.4 billion off its stock price by midday. &#0160; What happened? &#0160;This incident is a pretty good example of how rigid algorithmic and authoritarian decision making can create corporate disasters in an age dominated by social networking.</p> <p><strong>Algorithms</strong></p> <p>Here&#39;s how the algorithmic decision making created the incident on United.</p> <ul> <li>United employees board a full flight from Chicago to Louisville. &#0160;A United flight crew headed to Louisville arrives at the gate at the last moment. &#0160;A <strong>corporate scheduling algorithm</strong> decides that the deadheading flight crew has priority over passenger fares and that it needs to remove four passengers to make room for them (the flight wasn&#39;t overbooked). &#0160;<br /><br /></li> <li>United asks for volunteers. &#0160;A <strong>corporate financial algorithm</strong> authorizes gate employees to offer passengers up to $800 to take a later flight (offering a bigger incentive wasn&#39;t an option). &#0160;No passenger takes them up on that offer. &#0160;<br /><br /></li> <li>United now shifts to removing passengers from the flight non-voluntarily. &#0160;To determine who gets removed from the aircraft, United runs a <strong>customer value algorithm</strong>. &#0160;This algorithm calculates&#0160;the value of each passenger based on frequent flyer status, the price of the ticket, connecting flights, etc. &#0160;The customers with the lowest value to United are flagged for removal from the flight (it wasn&#39;t a random selection).</li> </ul> <p><strong>Authoritarianism</strong></p> <p>Here&#39;s how authoritarian decision making (common on modern air travel) made things worse. &#0160;Note how this type of decision making escalates the problem rapidly.</p> <ul> <li>The United flight crew approaches the four passengers identified by the corporate algorithm and tells them to deplane. &#0160;Three of the people designated get off the flight as ordered. &#0160;One refuses. &#0160;Since disobeyal of instructions from&#0160;the flight crew is not tolerated in post 9/11 air travel, the incident is escalated to the next level.<br /><br /></li> <li>United employees call the airport police to remove the passenger. &#0160;The airport police arrived to remove the unruly (he disobeyed orders) passenger. &#0160;The passenger disobeys the order from the airport police to deplane. &#0160;Disobeyal of an order by a police officer rapidly escalates to violence. &#0160;The police then remove the passenger by force (the video of this is shared on social media).<br /><br /></li> <li>The CEO of United Airlines rapidly responds: &#0160;&quot;While I deeply regret this situation arose, I also emphatically stand behind all of you, and I want to commend you for continuing to go above and beyond...&quot; &#0160;In short, the CEO praises his employees for following the corporate algorithms and for not backing down when their authority to remove a passenger was questioned (which resulted in more negative backlash on social networks)&gt;&#0160;</li> </ul> <p><strong>&#0160;What this means for Organizations</strong></p> <p>As you can see,<em> United was&#0160;designed to fail in a world connected by social networking and they are not alone. &#0160;</em>Let&#39;s recap. &#0160;United employees blindly followed the decision making of algorithms up to the point of telling seated passengers to deplane. &#0160;The authoritarian decision making that followed was just as rigid and unyielding. &#0160;Disobeying orders of the flight crew led to the police. &#0160;Disobeying the police led to forced removal. &#0160;Finally, the public failure of this process led United&#39;s CEO to praise&#0160;employees for their rigid adherence to algorithmic and authoritarian decision making. &#0160;The entire process&#0160;was inevitable. &#0160;It&#39;s also not a unique situation. &#0160;We&#39;re going to see much more of this in the future as algorithms and authoritarianism grow in America. &#0160;Here&#39;s how organizations are likely to respond:</p> <ul> <li>Human decision making escape valves. &#0160;Smart organizations will build escape valves into the algorithms used to dictate employee behavior. &#0160;In other words, if an algorithmic process is going terribly wrong, it should be OK for an employee to find a non-standard way to solve it or ask for help. &#0160;One way to jumpstart the process is to build a 24x7 &quot;rapid response team&quot; that can swoop in electronically (smart phone) to coach onsite employees on ways to response (and authorizing extremely non-standard responses on the spot).<br /><br /></li> <li>Avoid authoritarian escalation at all costs. &#0160;Once initiated, authoritarian decision making (comply!) can result in violent escalation. &#0160;That&#39;s bad news in a socially networked world as we have seen, again and again. &#0160;How will this play out? &#0160;Bad organizations will increasingly try to find ways to blame the victim. &#0160;For example, by saying the plane can&#39;t take off until this bad/sad man leaves OR deplaning all of the passengers in order to remove a&#0160;non-compliant&#0160;passenger by force in private. &#0160;Smarter organizations will respond by finding ways to completely decouple business decisions from authoritarian escalation. &#0160;For example: &#0160;by radically increasing the voluntary behavioral incentives as needed or by asking for <em>other</em> passengers to help out the&#0160;passenger in trouble (as in: &#0160;this man is a doctor and needs to get back to see patients, can anyone help us keep him on the flight?). &#0160;<br /><br /></li> <li>Admit it and fix it. &#0160;If a corporate algorithm yields a terrible result, smart organizations admit the failure. &#0160;They admit it didn&#39;t work to both your&#0160;<em>customers and employees</em>. &#0160;Algorithms don&#39;t have feelings. &#0160;They won&#39;t cry if you talk trash about them. &#0160;Also, smart organizations don&#39;t punish employees for raising the flag on a broken algorithm. &#0160;One last thought. &#0160;Smart organizations know what their algorithms are (or that they even exist) and how to fix them. &#0160;Dumb organizations see the process as inviable. &#0160;It should be easy to spot the difference between these organizations by the number of disasters seen online,</li> </ul> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>John Robb</p> <p>Writing on a gloriously sunny day in New England</p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e200d8341bf69853efGlobal Guerrillashttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e00d83451576d69e201bb098efa8e970d John Robb posted an entry http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2017-04-10T17:15:08Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e201bb098efa8c970dUsing Drones to Rapidly Set up Networkshttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2017-04-10T17:15:08Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451576d69e2John Robbhttp://profile.typepad.com/johnrobb<p>Here&#39;s a new drone (warning, acronym creep)&#0160;called the&#0160;CICADA, or Close-In Covert Autonomous Disposable Aircraft. &#0160;</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b8d2763a75970c-pi" style="display: inline;"><img alt="P1651266" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b8d2763a75970c img-responsive" src="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b8d2763a75970c-320wi" title="P1651266" /></a></p> <p>It&#39;s tiny and weighs only 65 grams. &#0160;It is meant to be dropped by an aircraft in a swarm (dozens at a time). &#0160;Once released, each drone flies/glides to its target location and takes up residence.</p> <p>What are they good for? &#0160;Not much right now, but they could evolve into a way to rapidly deploy large, geographically dispersed networks of sensors and/or mesh communication nodes. &#0160;</p> <p>Why use them? &#0160;They have the potential to provide P2P&#0160;communications and real time intel to&#0160;human units and autonomous weapons operating in a contested environment. &#0160;In other words, a relatively simple mesh comms/sensor network like this would &#0160;allow units in the field to connect with each other and sources of intel <em>sideways</em>.</p> <p>Longer term? &#0160;We will likely see&#0160;vast networks of drone sensor/comms nodes that provide resilient over the horizon services that surpass (both in survivability and usability) those provided by satellites and other traditional means.</p> <p>Here&#39;s a new drone (warning, acronym creep)&#0160;called the&#0160;CICADA, or Close-In Covert Autonomous Disposable Aircraft. &#0160;</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b8d2763a75970c-pi" style="display: inline;"><img alt="P1651266" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b8d2763a75970c img-responsive" src="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b8d2763a75970c-320wi" title="P1651266" /></a></p> <p>It&#39;s tiny and weighs only 65 grams. &#0160;It is meant to be dropped by an aircraft in a swarm (dozens at a time). &#0160;Once released, each drone flies/glides to its target location and takes up residence.</p> <p>What are they good for? &#0160;Not much right now, but they could evolve into a way to rapidly deploy large, geographically dispersed networks of sensors and/or mesh communication nodes. &#0160;</p> <p>Why use them? &#0160;They have the potential to provide P2P&#0160;communications and real time intel to&#0160;human units and autonomous weapons operating in a contested environment. &#0160;In other words, a relatively simple mesh comms/sensor network like this would &#0160;allow units in the field to connect with each other and sources of intel <em>sideways</em>.</p> <p>Longer term? &#0160;We will likely see&#0160;vast networks of drone sensor/comms nodes that provide resilient over the horizon services that surpass (both in survivability and usability) those provided by satellites and other traditional means.</p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e200d8341bf69853efGlobal Guerrillashttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e00d83451576d69e201bb098ef51b970d John Robb posted an entry http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2017-04-10T16:11:24Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e201b8d276273c970cThe Case for Neo Isolationismhttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2017-04-10T16:11:24Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451576d69e2John Robbhttp://profile.typepad.com/johnrobb<p>It appears that neo-conservatives are now in control of the Trump White House. &#0160;</p> <p>The bombing of the Assad regime in Syria announced to the world the US was still in the business of micromanaging global political outcomes through the selective use of violence (a profoundly anti-conservative notion).</p> <p>That&#39;s bad news. &#0160;The US record on military adventurism and regime change over the last few decades has been stunningly bad. &#0160;</p> <p>Worse, it&#39;s a gross misallocation of resources comparable to disasters of Soviet decision making in the 80&#39;s. &#0160;How bad is it?</p> <ul> <li>The 59 Tomahawks the US fired at Syria (to pound sand at an abandoned air base) will cost ~$75 million to replace. &#0160;</li> <li>The cost of fixing the water system in Flint Michigan (yes, it still hasn&#39;t been fixed) is pegged at ~$55 million.</li> </ul> <p>Looked at another way...</p> <p>The US spent ~ <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-iraq-war-anniversary-idUSBRE92D0PG20130314">$2 trillion</a>&#0160;($6 trillion including interest) for an optional and unnecessary war in Iraq. $2 trillion is enough to:</p> <ul> <li>build a permanent colony on Mars or</li> <li>rebuild the entire US air and rail system from scratch or</li> <li>provide catastrophic health insurance for <em>every</em> American citizen for four years... paving the way for real healthcare reform.</li> </ul> <p>This gross misallocation of resources suggests that <strong>true American greatness</strong> is the real casualty of American military adventurism.</p> <p>A casualty of a toxic foreign policy establishment that only defines greatness in terms of micromanaging the world through the selective use of <span class="text_exposed_show">violence.</span></p> <p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>Neo-Isolationism </strong></span></p> <p>How do we fix this failure? &#0160; One answer is neo-isolationism. &#0160;The premise of neo-isolationism is that America&#39;s best role in the world isn&#39;t as a superpower. &#0160;&#0160;Our best role is as an example. &#0160; A continuous demonstration to the world of <em>what is possible.</em></p> <p>This means that our greatness isn&#39;t found in micromanaging the ageless hatreds and enmities of the past, found in abundance in the Middle East, it&#39;s found in creating the future here at home and sharing that insight with the world. It&#39;s found by discovering, through trial and error, the best ways to maximize human potential in a world being driven forward by new technologies and globalization. It&#39;s found by creating a new future that benefits the greatest number of people in the best possible way, rather than merely enriching elites like much of the world.</p> <ul> <li>Pioneering a&#0160;broadly prosperous future using technological innovation is our traditional role. &#0160;We did it with electricity, cars, telephones, and aircraft in the past. We can still do it for the Internet, robotics, and AI.</li> <li>It&#39;s a role the rest of the world is less well suited to accomplish due to deadweight loss of historical and cultural friction (although on its current path with identity politics, the US is catching up).</li> <li>It&#39;s a role we are much better suited for than as a tired, old world empire exercising military force to micromanage political outcomes. &#0160;Contrast the rigidity of mind and spirit found in the ranks of DC&#39;s policy establishment to the flexibility and innovation found in the tech world.&#0160;</li> </ul> <p>Yes. &#0160;It&#39;s time for a change. &#0160;But the path to American success doesn&#39;t start with pounding Middle Eastern sand with million dollar missiles... it starts here at home.</p> <p>Sincerely,</p> <p>John Robb</p> <p>It appears that neo-conservatives are now in control of the Trump White House. &#0160;</p> <p>The bombing of the Assad regime in Syria announced to the world the US was still in the business of micromanaging global political outcomes through the selective use of violence (a profoundly anti-conservative notion).</p> <p>That&#39;s bad news. &#0160;The US record on military adventurism and regime change over the last few decades has been stunningly bad. &#0160;</p> <p>Worse, it&#39;s a gross misallocation of resources comparable to disasters of Soviet decision making in the 80&#39;s. &#0160;How bad is it?</p> <ul> <li>The 59 Tomahawks the US fired at Syria (to pound sand at an abandoned air base) will cost ~$75 million to replace. &#0160;</li> <li>The cost of fixing the water system in Flint Michigan (yes, it still hasn&#39;t been fixed) is pegged at ~$55 million.</li> </ul> <p>Looked at another way...</p> <p>The US spent ~ <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-iraq-war-anniversary-idUSBRE92D0PG20130314">$2 trillion</a>&#0160;($6 trillion including interest) for an optional and unnecessary war in Iraq. $2 trillion is enough to:</p> <ul> <li>build a permanent colony on Mars or</li> <li>rebuild the entire US air and rail system from scratch or</li> <li>provide catastrophic health insurance for <em>every</em> American citizen for four years... paving the way for real healthcare reform.</li> </ul> <p>This gross misallocation of resources suggests that <strong>true American greatness</strong> is the real casualty of American military adventurism.</p> <p>A casualty of a toxic foreign policy establishment that only defines greatness in terms of micromanaging the world through the selective use of <span class="text_exposed_show">violence.</span></p> <p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>Neo-Isolationism </strong></span></p> <p>How do we fix this failure? &#0160; One answer is neo-isolationism. &#0160;The premise of neo-isolationism is that America&#39;s best role in the world isn&#39;t as a superpower. &#0160;&#0160;Our best role is as an example. &#0160; A continuous demonstration to the world of <em>what is possible.</em></p> <p>This means that our greatness isn&#39;t found in micromanaging the ageless hatreds and enmities of the past, found in abundance in the Middle East, it&#39;s found in creating the future here at home and sharing that insight with the world. It&#39;s found by discovering, through trial and error, the best ways to maximize human potential in a world being driven forward by new technologies and globalization. It&#39;s found by creating a new future that benefits the greatest number of people in the best possible way, rather than merely enriching elites like much of the world.</p> <ul> <li>Pioneering a&#0160;broadly prosperous future using technological innovation is our traditional role. &#0160;We did it with electricity, cars, telephones, and aircraft in the past. We can still do it for the Internet, robotics, and AI.</li> <li>It&#39;s a role the rest of the world is less well suited to accomplish due to deadweight loss of historical and cultural friction (although on its current path with identity politics, the US is catching up).</li> <li>It&#39;s a role we are much better suited for than as a tired, old world empire exercising military force to micromanage political outcomes. &#0160;Contrast the rigidity of mind and spirit found in the ranks of DC&#39;s policy establishment to the flexibility and innovation found in the tech world.&#0160;</li> </ul> <p>Yes. &#0160;It&#39;s time for a change. &#0160;But the path to American success doesn&#39;t start with pounding Middle Eastern sand with million dollar missiles... it starts here at home.</p> <p>Sincerely,</p> <p>John Robb</p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e200d8341bf69853efGlobal Guerrillashttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e00d83451576d69e201b7c8e527c3970b John Robb posted something http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2017-03-28T12:25:12Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e201b7c8e527c2970bhttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/comment2017-03-28T12:25:12Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451576d69e2John Robbhttp://profile.typepad.com/johnrobbtag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e200d8341bf69853efGlobal Guerrillashttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e00d83451576d69e201bb0986a926970d John Robb posted an entry http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2017-03-23T14:24:43Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e201bb0986a924970dThe London Terrorist Attack and the JCC Bomb Threatshttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2017-03-23T14:24:43Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451576d69e2John Robbhttp://profile.typepad.com/johnrobb<p><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Jewish Community Center Bomb Threats</span></p> <p>Last summer&#0160;<a href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2016/06/disruptive-robocalling.html">I wrote about how hacking the phone system</a>&#0160;could be used to automate terrorism. &#0160;That analysis is proving to be spot on. &#0160;Today, we learned that <a href="https://apnews.com/a6a67fb761304e3cae7497faa32dcdc9?">a 19 year old&#0160;American-Israeli living in Israel</a>, hacked satellites and phone equipment to make 120 fake bomb threats Jewish Community Centers (JCCs) in the US, Australia, and New Zealand. &#0160;</p> <p>Further, the timing, target type, and number of threats led to the successful exploitation of a social <a href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2004/12/the_systempunkt.html">systempunkt</a>&#0160;(the most vulnerable part of a complex network). &#0160;&#0160;In this case, the attack exploited anti-Trump media narratives to label the President as an anti-semite. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/02/28/trump-questioned-who-is-really-behind-anti-semitic-threats-and-vandalism-official-says/?utm_term=.5884969ab6fc">It worked</a>. &#0160; &#0160;</p> <p><span style="text-decoration: underline;">London Terrorist Attack</span></p> <p>Last summer, <a href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2016/06/since-911-the-us-has-been-relatively-immune-to-terrorism-why-the-large-scale-planning-required-to-pull-off-an-attack-li.html">I wrote extensively</a>&#0160;about&#0160;how ISIS was using social networking innovatively to remotely activate terrorist attacks around the world. &#0160;In short, this new model did away with the training, planning, and support required for traditional&#0160;attacks. &#0160;This lack of communication makes an attack very hard to detect. &#0160;</p> <p>Here&#39;s how they did it:</p> <ul> <li>Planning, preparing, and executing an attack on your own is a <strong>rite of initiation</strong>&#0160;into ISIS.&#0160;</li> <li>An <strong>online <a href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2016/06/fealty-and-modern-terrorism-1.html">pledge</a>&#0160;of <a href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2016/06/online-fealty.html">fealty</a></strong>&#0160;to the Caliph (Facebook live video or post) during or just before the attack connects the attack to ISIS.</li> <li>Upon seeing the attack and the pledge, ISIS will immediately accept the attacker as a &#39;<strong>soldier of the Islamic state</strong>.&#39;</li> </ul> <p>Since I wrote about this method, we&#39;ve seen ISIS make a wholesale shift to it <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/04/world/asia/isis-messaging-app-terror-plot.html">as this NYT graphic</a> shows:</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b8d26dd6e8970c-pi" style="display: inline;"><img alt="Self activated" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b8d26dd6e8970c img-responsive" src="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b8d26dd6e8970c-500wi" title="Self activated" /></a></p> <p>How does this relate to the attack in London? &#0160;</p> <p>London&#0160;appears to fit the my model for online activation. &#0160;We&#39;ll know for sure when we get confirmation when we find an online pledge of fealty by the attacker.</p> <p>Sincerely,</p> <p>John Robb</p> <p>PS: &#0160;Since I first wrote about this model last year, lots of attacks using it have been made. &#0160;It&#39;s now possible to ask the question: Is online activation more effective than planned attacks?</p> <p>The attacks appear to be as large as planned attacks. e.g.<br />Orlando: 49<br />Nice: 86<span class="text_exposed_show"><br />Istanbul: 39</span></p> <div class="text_exposed_show"> <p>They also appear to be more numerous, more geographically dispersed, far harder to detect/foil (fewer attacks prevented), and nearly costless. &#0160; This suggests that online activation is a more successful method than planned/coordinated attacks.</p> </div> <p><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Jewish Community Center Bomb Threats</span></p> <p>Last summer&#0160;<a href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2016/06/disruptive-robocalling.html">I wrote about how hacking the phone system</a>&#0160;could be used to automate terrorism. &#0160;That analysis is proving to be spot on. &#0160;Today, we learned that <a href="https://apnews.com/a6a67fb761304e3cae7497faa32dcdc9?">a 19 year old&#0160;American-Israeli living in Israel</a>, hacked satellites and phone equipment to make 120 fake bomb threats Jewish Community Centers (JCCs) in the US, Australia, and New Zealand. &#0160;</p> <p>Further, the timing, target type, and number of threats led to the successful exploitation of a social <a href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2004/12/the_systempunkt.html">systempunkt</a>&#0160;(the most vulnerable part of a complex network). &#0160;&#0160;In this case, the attack exploited anti-Trump media narratives to label the President as an anti-semite. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/02/28/trump-questioned-who-is-really-behind-anti-semitic-threats-and-vandalism-official-says/?utm_term=.5884969ab6fc">It worked</a>. &#0160; &#0160;</p> <p><span style="text-decoration: underline;">London Terrorist Attack</span></p> <p>Last summer, <a href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2016/06/since-911-the-us-has-been-relatively-immune-to-terrorism-why-the-large-scale-planning-required-to-pull-off-an-attack-li.html">I wrote extensively</a>&#0160;about&#0160;how ISIS was using social networking innovatively to remotely activate terrorist attacks around the world. &#0160;In short, this new model did away with the training, planning, and support required for traditional&#0160;attacks. &#0160;This lack of communication makes an attack very hard to detect. &#0160;</p> <p>Here&#39;s how they did it:</p> <ul> <li>Planning, preparing, and executing an attack on your own is a <strong>rite of initiation</strong>&#0160;into ISIS.&#0160;</li> <li>An <strong>online <a href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2016/06/fealty-and-modern-terrorism-1.html">pledge</a>&#0160;of <a href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2016/06/online-fealty.html">fealty</a></strong>&#0160;to the Caliph (Facebook live video or post) during or just before the attack connects the attack to ISIS.</li> <li>Upon seeing the attack and the pledge, ISIS will immediately accept the attacker as a &#39;<strong>soldier of the Islamic state</strong>.&#39;</li> </ul> <p>Since I wrote about this method, we&#39;ve seen ISIS make a wholesale shift to it <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/04/world/asia/isis-messaging-app-terror-plot.html">as this NYT graphic</a> shows:</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b8d26dd6e8970c-pi" style="display: inline;"><img alt="Self activated" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b8d26dd6e8970c img-responsive" src="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b8d26dd6e8970c-500wi" title="Self activated" /></a></p> <p>How does this relate to the attack in London? &#0160;</p> <p>London&#0160;appears to fit the my model for online activation. &#0160;We&#39;ll know for sure when we get confirmation when we find an online pledge of fealty by the attacker.</p> <p>Sincerely,</p> <p>John Robb</p> <p>PS: &#0160;Since I first wrote about this model last year, lots of attacks using it have been made. &#0160;It&#39;s now possible to ask the question: Is online activation more effective than planned attacks?</p> <p>The attacks appear to be as large as planned attacks. e.g.<br />Orlando: 49<br />Nice: 86<span class="text_exposed_show"><br />Istanbul: 39</span></p> <div class="text_exposed_show"> <p>They also appear to be more numerous, more geographically dispersed, far harder to detect/foil (fewer attacks prevented), and nearly costless. &#0160; This suggests that online activation is a more successful method than planned/coordinated attacks.</p> </div>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e200d8341bf69853efGlobal Guerrillashttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e00d83451576d69e201b8d26be02a970c John Robb posted something http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2017-03-17T20:11:12Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e201b8d26be028970chttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/comment2017-03-17T20:11:12Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451576d69e2John Robbhttp://profile.typepad.com/johnrobbtag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e200d8341bf69853efGlobal Guerrillashttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e00d83451576d69e201b7c8e0a8ec970b John Robb posted an entry http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2017-03-15T16:51:44Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e201b7c8e0a8ea970bSome More Thoughts on Automating Populismhttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2017-03-15T16:51:44Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451576d69e2John Robbhttp://profile.typepad.com/johnrobb<p>Here&#39;s some more thinking on how&#0160;Trump (with Bannon&#39;s help) could (<a href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2017/03/bannons-secret-weapon.html">~will</a>) use social networking to turn the populist insurgency that got them&#0160;into the White House into a dynamic (or extremely dangerous, depending on your perspective) political force.</p> <ul> <li>A transition to a networked political party&#0160;is likely to happen first in populist movements like Trump&#39;s. &#0160;The rest of the political spectrum will follow quickly thereafter.<br /><br /></li> <li>Within a handful of years after its emergence, all political parties will be networked parties. &#0160;<br /><br /></li> <li>These networked parties will all feature direct democracy via smartphone voting. &#0160;This will make it possible for party members to decide how their political representatives vote. &#0160;Is this potentially dangerous? &#0160;Sure. &#0160;However, direct democracy is one of the few ways to rapidly rebuild the legitimacy of a system that has lost it. &#0160;<br /><br /></li> <li>Trump has a significant first mover advantage. &#0160;He is one of the few politicians/parties able to tie party votes on the network to real world decisions at the highest level. &#0160;<br /><br /></li> <li>The &quot;Trump party app&quot; will only work if it is&#0160;limited to Trump supporters. &#0160;Only Trump supporters can use the app to vote on important political decisions that Trump makes in the White House. &#0160;</li> </ul> <p>Here&#39;s some more thinking on how&#0160;Trump (with Bannon&#39;s help) could (<a href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2017/03/bannons-secret-weapon.html">~will</a>) use social networking to turn the populist insurgency that got them&#0160;into the White House into a dynamic (or extremely dangerous, depending on your perspective) political force.</p> <ul> <li>A transition to a networked political party&#0160;is likely to happen first in populist movements like Trump&#39;s. &#0160;The rest of the political spectrum will follow quickly thereafter.<br /><br /></li> <li>Within a handful of years after its emergence, all political parties will be networked parties. &#0160;<br /><br /></li> <li>These networked parties will all feature direct democracy via smartphone voting. &#0160;This will make it possible for party members to decide how their political representatives vote. &#0160;Is this potentially dangerous? &#0160;Sure. &#0160;However, direct democracy is one of the few ways to rapidly rebuild the legitimacy of a system that has lost it. &#0160;<br /><br /></li> <li>Trump has a significant first mover advantage. &#0160;He is one of the few politicians/parties able to tie party votes on the network to real world decisions at the highest level. &#0160;<br /><br /></li> <li>The &quot;Trump party app&quot; will only work if it is&#0160;limited to Trump supporters. &#0160;Only Trump supporters can use the app to vote on important political decisions that Trump makes in the White House. &#0160;</li> </ul>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e200d8341bf69853efGlobal Guerrillashttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e00d83451576d69e201b7c8dfea6e970b John Robb posted something http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2017-03-13T17:58:24Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e201b7c8dfea6d970bhttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/comment2017-03-13T17:58:24Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451576d69e2John Robbhttp://profile.typepad.com/johnrobbtag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e200d8341bf69853efGlobal Guerrillashttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e00d83451576d69e201b7c8dfe9b6970b John Robb posted something http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2017-03-13T17:56:12Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e201b7c8dfe9b5970bhttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/comment2017-03-13T17:56:12Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451576d69e2John Robbhttp://profile.typepad.com/johnrobbtag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e200d8341bf69853efGlobal Guerrillashttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e00d83451576d69e201b7c8dfe932970b John Robb posted something http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2017-03-13T17:51:01Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e201b7c8dfe931970bhttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/comment2017-03-13T17:51:01Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451576d69e2John Robbhttp://profile.typepad.com/johnrobbtag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e200d8341bf69853efGlobal Guerrillashttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e00d83451576d69e201b8d26972ff970c John Robb posted an entry http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2017-03-10T23:57:15Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e201bb098240d3970dHow Trump and Bannon Could Automate Populismhttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2017-03-10T23:57:15Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451576d69e2John Robbhttp://profile.typepad.com/johnrobb<p>We live in a world where we can get nearly everything instantly. &#0160;</p> <p>Instant information. &#0160;Instant entertainment. &#0160;Instant communications. &#0160;Instant transactions. &#0160; &#0160;</p> <p>Simply and rightly, we have come to expect our decisions to yield instant results from the systems that serve us. &#0160;</p> <p>Well, that&#39;s true for every system <em>except</em> our political system. &#0160; &#0160;</p> <p>We&#39;re only allowed to interact with our political system, in a meaningful way, only once every two years and only then by filling out a multiple choice quiz in an election booth. &#0160;</p> <p>That&#39;s akin to an Internet that only available for a couple of hours every two years at 1,200 baud. &#0160;&#0160;</p> <p>It&#39;s crazy in this day and age. &#0160;Worse, there&#39;s increasing evidence it is driving us crazy. &#0160; We are filling the time in between these electoral events with around the clock political warfare. &#0160;A ceaseless drumbeat of outrage and conspiracy, amplified by the online echo chambers we spend our time in.</p> <p>Fortunately, I don&#39;t believe this disconnect will last long. &#0160; A form of direct democracy is coming. &#0160;One that lets people directly influence the decisions of the people they send to Washington.</p> <p>A&#0160;form of interactive democracy that doesn&#39;t require any changes to the constitution since it works at the party level and not the national. &#0160;</p> <p>When it does, it&#39;s going to hit us fast, taking off like wildfire since it fulfills a fundamental need that the current system does not provide.&#0160;</p> <p>Here&#39;s a quick example from the perspective of the Trump insurgency. &#0160;Other political parties would need different approaches, but they could if done in the right way (simple approach, scaled quickly by using disruptive marketing, grow from there), grow as quickly as this. &#0160;</p> <p>Here&#39;s how quickly populism can be automated:</p> <ul> <li>Trump or Bannon picks an issue: the narrower and more inflammatory (disruptive marketing) the better. &#0160;Make the vote a yes or no.</li> <li>Trump asks his supporters&#0160;to tell him what they want (he doesn&#39;t ask those opposing him).&#0160;</li> <li>His supporters download the app to their smart phones and vote. &#0160;</li> <li>A little programming and marketing magic radically improves the number of Trump supporters using the app and reduces spammers/non-supporters attempting to skew the vote down to a trickle.</li> <li>Millions of Trump supporters download the app and vote. &#0160;</li> <li>Once the decision is in, the app makes it easy to call or spam message to the user&#39;s Congressional representatives. &#0160;Millions of calls roll in. &#0160;</li> <li>A bill that codifies that issue is fast tracked in Congress. &#0160;Massive pressure via the app and the White House gets it passed quickly.</li> <li>Connecting action and results quickly generates buzz. &#0160;Repeat. &#0160;This time with 10 m downloads. &#0160;</li> <li>The app evolves. The pressure from the network increases. &#0160;It consumes&#0160;the Republican party.</li> </ul> <p>Notice how the system, in a barebones fashion, could become a staple of governance nearly overnight. &#0160;</p> <p>Notice too how this doesn&#39;t in any way change the system of governance that is already in place. &#0160;It&#39;s a plug and play upgrade (for many and something deeply scary downgrade to many). &#0160;</p> <p>Regardless, networked politics is coming. &#0160;It won&#39;t matter if you like it or not. &#0160; It&#39;s inevitable.</p> <p>How networked politics evolves from this humble beginning is the tricky part. &#0160;</p> <p>Get it wrong and we&#39;re making the same mistakes we did with the governance of the nation-state prior to WW2 or in replacing feudal with representative governments -- it could end in horrific violence. &#0160;</p> <p>Get it right and we could zoom forward economically, socially, and culturally.</p> <p>Sincerely,</p> <p>John Robb</p> <p>PS: &#0160;This example is barebones. &#0160;I&#39;ve left out most of the nuance. &#0160;If you want that, you will need to hire me to help you design and build it. &#0160;I&#39;m an idealist, but I&#39;m also a mercenary capitalist. &#0160;</p> <p>We live in a world where we can get nearly everything instantly. &#0160;</p> <p>Instant information. &#0160;Instant entertainment. &#0160;Instant communications. &#0160;Instant transactions. &#0160; &#0160;</p> <p>Simply and rightly, we have come to expect our decisions to yield instant results from the systems that serve us. &#0160;</p> <p>Well, that&#39;s true for every system <em>except</em> our political system. &#0160; &#0160;</p> <p>We&#39;re only allowed to interact with our political system, in a meaningful way, only once every two years and only then by filling out a multiple choice quiz in an election booth. &#0160;</p> <p>That&#39;s akin to an Internet that only available for a couple of hours every two years at 1,200 baud. &#0160;&#0160;</p> <p>It&#39;s crazy in this day and age. &#0160;Worse, there&#39;s increasing evidence it is driving us crazy. &#0160; We are filling the time in between these electoral events with around the clock political warfare. &#0160;A ceaseless drumbeat of outrage and conspiracy, amplified by the online echo chambers we spend our time in.</p> <p>Fortunately, I don&#39;t believe this disconnect will last long. &#0160; A form of direct democracy is coming. &#0160;One that lets people directly influence the decisions of the people they send to Washington.</p> <p>A&#0160;form of interactive democracy that doesn&#39;t require any changes to the constitution since it works at the party level and not the national. &#0160;</p> <p>When it does, it&#39;s going to hit us fast, taking off like wildfire since it fulfills a fundamental need that the current system does not provide.&#0160;</p> <p>Here&#39;s a quick example from the perspective of the Trump insurgency. &#0160;Other political parties would need different approaches, but they could if done in the right way (simple approach, scaled quickly by using disruptive marketing, grow from there), grow as quickly as this. &#0160;</p> <p>Here&#39;s how quickly populism can be automated:</p> <ul> <li>Trump or Bannon picks an issue: the narrower and more inflammatory (disruptive marketing) the better. &#0160;Make the vote a yes or no.</li> <li>Trump asks his supporters&#0160;to tell him what they want (he doesn&#39;t ask those opposing him).&#0160;</li> <li>His supporters download the app to their smart phones and vote. &#0160;</li> <li>A little programming and marketing magic radically improves the number of Trump supporters using the app and reduces spammers/non-supporters attempting to skew the vote down to a trickle.</li> <li>Millions of Trump supporters download the app and vote. &#0160;</li> <li>Once the decision is in, the app makes it easy to call or spam message to the user&#39;s Congressional representatives. &#0160;Millions of calls roll in. &#0160;</li> <li>A bill that codifies that issue is fast tracked in Congress. &#0160;Massive pressure via the app and the White House gets it passed quickly.</li> <li>Connecting action and results quickly generates buzz. &#0160;Repeat. &#0160;This time with 10 m downloads. &#0160;</li> <li>The app evolves. The pressure from the network increases. &#0160;It consumes&#0160;the Republican party.</li> </ul> <p>Notice how the system, in a barebones fashion, could become a staple of governance nearly overnight. &#0160;</p> <p>Notice too how this doesn&#39;t in any way change the system of governance that is already in place. &#0160;It&#39;s a plug and play upgrade (for many and something deeply scary downgrade to many). &#0160;</p> <p>Regardless, networked politics is coming. &#0160;It won&#39;t matter if you like it or not. &#0160; It&#39;s inevitable.</p> <p>How networked politics evolves from this humble beginning is the tricky part. &#0160;</p> <p>Get it wrong and we&#39;re making the same mistakes we did with the governance of the nation-state prior to WW2 or in replacing feudal with representative governments -- it could end in horrific violence. &#0160;</p> <p>Get it right and we could zoom forward economically, socially, and culturally.</p> <p>Sincerely,</p> <p>John Robb</p> <p>PS: &#0160;This example is barebones. &#0160;I&#39;ve left out most of the nuance. &#0160;If you want that, you will need to hire me to help you design and build it. &#0160;I&#39;m an idealist, but I&#39;m also a mercenary capitalist. &#0160;</p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e200d8341bf69853efGlobal Guerrillashttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e00d83451576d69e201bb0981d27f970d John Robb posted an entry http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2017-03-09T19:31:33Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e201bb0981d27c970dA BIG Start-up Opportunity in Politics?http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2017-03-09T19:31:33Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451576d69e2John Robbhttp://profile.typepad.com/johnrobb<p>The New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/08/business/how-trump-became-the-first-silicon-valley-president.html">pointed out yesterday</a>&#0160;that&#0160;Trump ran his candidacy like an Internet start-up. &#0160;His goal was to use Internet technology to disintermediate the established system (parties, media, etc.) of getting a President elected. &#0160;Bannon even brought into the team start-up culture mantras:</p> <p>&quot;move fast and break things&quot;</p> <p>“figure out what needs doing, and then just do it. Don’t wait for permission.”</p> <p>I agree and I&#39;ve been saying something similar for a year.&#0160;</p> <p>However, I have one important caveat. Unlike wildly successful Internet start-ups, Trump didn&#39;t build a technological platform. &#0160;Instead, he ran an <a href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2008/03/starting-an-ope.html">open source political insurgency</a> using social networking.</p> <p>While open source insurgencies are extremely powerful (they have toppled governments and fought wars), they are very difficult to govern with. &#0160;For example, open source insurgencies dissolve into infighting without an active enemy to fight. &#0160;Trump&#39;s work around for this has been labelling the media as the opposition party and generating controversy.&#0160;</p> <p>Because&#0160;Trump&#39;s start-up didn&#39;t <strong>build</strong> any technology, he doesn&#39;t have a cohesive social network to synergistically unite his political supporters. &#0160;A synergy that could turn it into a dominant political force. &#0160;It&#39;s still operating in open source insurgency mode (something Steve Bannon understands in his bones).&#0160;</p> <p>This means there is still a massive opportunity available. &#0160;</p> <p>An opportunity to build the first political social network that replaces a traditional party apparatus. &#0160;One that operates completely different than any political party we&#39;ve had in this country. &#0160;</p> <p>A political platform that provides direct participation (think apps) in the political process on a daily or hourly basis rather than once every two years. &#0160; &#0160;</p> <p>A platform that could grow to 60 m active participants in less than two years. &#0160;</p> <p>A platform that establishes norms of conduct and expectations of the future rather than rips them down. &#0160;</p> <p>A political network that&#0160;allows us, as a country, to aspire to greatness again.&#0160;</p> <p>Sincerely,</p> <p>John Robb</p> <p>PS: &#0160;This window of opportunity will close fast. &#0160;Anyone could launch the moonshot to get this done and before it even comes out of stealth alpha, the competition could&#0160;be over. &#0160;</p> <p>PPS: &#0160;This is likely to be&#0160;a phase transition in our political system. &#0160;This means that any errors at the start&#0160;are amplified manyfold downstream (think in terms of bad assumptions built into&#0160;the US Constitution that haunted us later in our history).</p> <p>The New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/08/business/how-trump-became-the-first-silicon-valley-president.html">pointed out yesterday</a>&#0160;that&#0160;Trump ran his candidacy like an Internet start-up. &#0160;His goal was to use Internet technology to disintermediate the established system (parties, media, etc.) of getting a President elected. &#0160;Bannon even brought into the team start-up culture mantras:</p> <p>&quot;move fast and break things&quot;</p> <p>“figure out what needs doing, and then just do it. Don’t wait for permission.”</p> <p>I agree and I&#39;ve been saying something similar for a year.&#0160;</p> <p>However, I have one important caveat. Unlike wildly successful Internet start-ups, Trump didn&#39;t build a technological platform. &#0160;Instead, he ran an <a href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2008/03/starting-an-ope.html">open source political insurgency</a> using social networking.</p> <p>While open source insurgencies are extremely powerful (they have toppled governments and fought wars), they are very difficult to govern with. &#0160;For example, open source insurgencies dissolve into infighting without an active enemy to fight. &#0160;Trump&#39;s work around for this has been labelling the media as the opposition party and generating controversy.&#0160;</p> <p>Because&#0160;Trump&#39;s start-up didn&#39;t <strong>build</strong> any technology, he doesn&#39;t have a cohesive social network to synergistically unite his political supporters. &#0160;A synergy that could turn it into a dominant political force. &#0160;It&#39;s still operating in open source insurgency mode (something Steve Bannon understands in his bones).&#0160;</p> <p>This means there is still a massive opportunity available. &#0160;</p> <p>An opportunity to build the first political social network that replaces a traditional party apparatus. &#0160;One that operates completely different than any political party we&#39;ve had in this country. &#0160;</p> <p>A political platform that provides direct participation (think apps) in the political process on a daily or hourly basis rather than once every two years. &#0160; &#0160;</p> <p>A platform that could grow to 60 m active participants in less than two years. &#0160;</p> <p>A platform that establishes norms of conduct and expectations of the future rather than rips them down. &#0160;</p> <p>A political network that&#0160;allows us, as a country, to aspire to greatness again.&#0160;</p> <p>Sincerely,</p> <p>John Robb</p> <p>PS: &#0160;This window of opportunity will close fast. &#0160;Anyone could launch the moonshot to get this done and before it even comes out of stealth alpha, the competition could&#0160;be over. &#0160;</p> <p>PPS: &#0160;This is likely to be&#0160;a phase transition in our political system. &#0160;This means that any errors at the start&#0160;are amplified manyfold downstream (think in terms of bad assumptions built into&#0160;the US Constitution that haunted us later in our history).</p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e200d8341bf69853efGlobal Guerrillashttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e00d83451576d69e201b7c8d499c3970b John Robb posted an entry http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2017-02-10T22:13:55Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e201b7c8d492e2970bPolitical Networking (how social networking is changing politics forever)http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2017-02-12T16:30:08Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451576d69e2John Robbhttp://profile.typepad.com/johnrobb<p>Social networking is changing politics, that fact should be clear by now. &#0160;A simple proof: &#0160;Trump wouldn&#39;t be in the White House without it.</p> <p>But where is <em>political networking</em> taking us? &#0160;That&#39;s the BIG question. I&#39;ve been doing lots of thinking about this (it&#39;s going into my book). Here&#39;s my shorthand for where our political system is headed. We have three political networks to choose from:</p> <ol> <li>Insurgency</li> <li>Orthodoxy</li> <li>Participatory</li> </ol> <p><strong>Insurgency</strong></p> <p>Trump used an open source insurgency (<a href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2004/09/bazaar_dynamics.html">I first wrote about this back in 2004</a>) to become president. This insurgency didn&#39;t just with the election, it:</p> <ul> <li>blew up both the Republican and Democrat parties</li> <li>did it without much organization or advertisement spending</li> <li>accomplished it despite vocal and strident opposition from the entire media establishment (from NY to Hollywood), all of academia, and most of Silicon Valley</li> </ul> <p>Trump&#39;s insurgency worked like open source insurgencies in the past (from the Iraq war to Egypt/Tunisia).</p> <ul> <li>An open source insurgency is a loose network (meshed) that is composed of many individuals and small groups working independently, but united by a single purpose (in this case: electing Trump). &#0160;</li> <li>Open source insurgencies are much more innovative than their bureaucratic counterparts. They constantly coming up with and trying out new ideas. For example: the seventy to one hundred groups in the Iraqi insurgency rolled out new innovations (tactics to weapons) in days, while it took months for the US military to counter them.</li> <li>Trump accelerated and directed this insurgency by interacting with it. &#0160;For example, he accelerate the innovation of the insurgency by paying attention to it (<a href="https://medium.com/@GoldenGus/collective-intellignce-and-swarms-in-the-red-church-49f6a6d04825#.pvk5w55y8">read Gustavo&#39;s essay for more</a>). Tweets and media mentions incentivised innovation and spread new ideas across the insurgency in minutes (not days/weeks). &#0160;&#0160;Trump also selected targets for the insurgency. In many, many instances, Trump directed the insurgency to silence individuals in the opposition through a torrent of online/offline abuse.</li> </ul> <p>Trump&#39;s currently trying to adapt this insurgency to govern. &#0160;Where will it take us? Early results suggest that Trump&#39;s insurgency is better suited for dismantling a large, bureaucratic government and international order than running it. It&#39;s also the type of network that will erode the rule of law over time.</p> <p><strong>Orthodoxy</strong></p> <p>The second form of political social networking I&#39;m seeing is found in the opposition to Trump&#39;s presidency. &#0160;Right now, it&#39;s known as the #resistance &#0160; The orthodoxy wasn&#39;t planned, it:</p> <ul> <li>arose out of the ashes of the political parties and it is growing without any formal leadership</li> <li>is ALREADY firmly in control of nearly all public forums</li> <li>enforces opposition to Trump</li> </ul> <p>The orthodoxy is an open source insurgency in reverse. &#0160;It uses social networking to crack down on deviation and dissent.&#0160;</p> <ul> <li>The orthodoxy is tightly interconnected network that uses social networking to exert pressure on people to accept the orthodox position (in this case: #resistance to Trump).</li> <li>Online orthodoxies grow through peer pressure and disconnecting deviants from the network. &#0160;It doesn&#39;t innovate. &#0160;It rejects, cajoles, and pillories.</li> <li>This online orthodoxy is growing at an accelerated pace because Trump feeds the outrage that fuels it.</li> </ul> <p>How will an orthodox network govern? &#0160;It will eventually formalize compliance with the orthodoxy. Compliance, evidenced by a long social networking history, will qualify people for positions of authority and power. Any deviation will result in bans, loss of income, etc. until the target repents. &#0160;This orthodoxy will work in parallel to the rule of law and likely exceed its coercive power over time.</p> <p><strong>Participatory</strong></p> <p>This form of social networking doesn&#39;t have an example in the US yet.</p> <ul> <li>The Movement 5 Star in Italy is a political party run as a social network. &#0160;It is running number one in the polls, has mayor in Rome and Turin, and recently deposed the Prime Minister.</li> <li>The political representatives the M5S sends to Rome must vote the way the party tells them to vote. &#0160;They aren&#39;t independent.</li> <li>The M5S is a participatory political party. &#0160;The people in the party debate the issues and vote on how their representatives should vote in Rome.</li> </ul> <p>The participatory party is still young, but it combines the fluidity of the &quot;insurgency&quot; with the solidarity of &quot;orthodoxy.&quot; &#0160;</p> <ul> <li>A participatory party could be run as a cell phone app. &#0160;This would allow it to <em>scale</em>... to 70 plus million members is possible.&#0160;</li> <li>Unlike current political parties, this party wouldn&#39;t just vote every 2 years to elect candidates. &#0160;It would operate continuously. &#0160;Voting on all major issues.</li> <li>A participatory party could arise independently, growing virally, or it could coopt an existing political party from the inside out.</li> </ul> <p>How would a participatory network govern? &#0160;Unlike the other systems, it has the best chance of working within the confines of the current US Constitution. &#0160;It also has the strength to tame political distortions caused by globalization without resorting to the extremes of either the orthodoxy or the insurgency.</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201bb0977b9ba970d-pi"><img alt="ExpressPass1" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201bb0977b9ba970d img-responsive" src="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201bb0977b9ba970d-320wi" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="ExpressPass1" /></a>My bet is on a participatory political system made possible by social networking. &#0160;It&#39;s the best chance for a better future. &#0160;A system where we put social networking to work for us instead of <em>against</em> us.</p> <p>Of course, the reality is probably something different: <em>we&#39;re prepping for a civil war</em>.</p> <p>Sincerely,</p> <p>John Robb</p> <p>Social networking is changing politics, that fact should be clear by now. &#0160;A simple proof: &#0160;Trump wouldn&#39;t be in the White House without it.</p> <p>But where is <em>political networking</em> taking us? &#0160;That&#39;s the BIG question. I&#39;ve been doing lots of thinking about this (it&#39;s going into my book). Here&#39;s my shorthand for where our political system is headed. We have three political networks to choose from:</p> <ol> <li>Insurgency</li> <li>Orthodoxy</li> <li>Participatory</li> </ol> <p><strong>Insurgency</strong></p> <p>Trump used an open source insurgency (<a href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2004/09/bazaar_dynamics.html">I first wrote about this back in 2004</a>) to become president. This insurgency didn&#39;t just with the election, it:</p> <ul> <li>blew up both the Republican and Democrat parties</li> <li>did it without much organization or advertisement spending</li> <li>accomplished it despite vocal and strident opposition from the entire media establishment (from NY to Hollywood), all of academia, and most of Silicon Valley</li> </ul> <p>Trump&#39;s insurgency worked like open source insurgencies in the past (from the Iraq war to Egypt/Tunisia).</p> <ul> <li>An open source insurgency is a loose network (meshed) that is composed of many individuals and small groups working independently, but united by a single purpose (in this case: electing Trump). &#0160;</li> <li>Open source insurgencies are much more innovative than their bureaucratic counterparts. They constantly coming up with and trying out new ideas. For example: the seventy to one hundred groups in the Iraqi insurgency rolled out new innovations (tactics to weapons) in days, while it took months for the US military to counter them.</li> <li>Trump accelerated and directed this insurgency by interacting with it. &#0160;For example, he accelerate the innovation of the insurgency by paying attention to it (<a href="https://medium.com/@GoldenGus/collective-intellignce-and-swarms-in-the-red-church-49f6a6d04825#.pvk5w55y8">read Gustavo&#39;s essay for more</a>). Tweets and media mentions incentivised innovation and spread new ideas across the insurgency in minutes (not days/weeks). &#0160;&#0160;Trump also selected targets for the insurgency. In many, many instances, Trump directed the insurgency to silence individuals in the opposition through a torrent of online/offline abuse.</li> </ul> <p>Trump&#39;s currently trying to adapt this insurgency to govern. &#0160;Where will it take us? Early results suggest that Trump&#39;s insurgency is better suited for dismantling a large, bureaucratic government and international order than running it. It&#39;s also the type of network that will erode the rule of law over time.</p> <p><strong>Orthodoxy</strong></p> <p>The second form of political social networking I&#39;m seeing is found in the opposition to Trump&#39;s presidency. &#0160;Right now, it&#39;s known as the #resistance &#0160; The orthodoxy wasn&#39;t planned, it:</p> <ul> <li>arose out of the ashes of the political parties and it is growing without any formal leadership</li> <li>is ALREADY firmly in control of nearly all public forums</li> <li>enforces opposition to Trump</li> </ul> <p>The orthodoxy is an open source insurgency in reverse. &#0160;It uses social networking to crack down on deviation and dissent.&#0160;</p> <ul> <li>The orthodoxy is tightly interconnected network that uses social networking to exert pressure on people to accept the orthodox position (in this case: #resistance to Trump).</li> <li>Online orthodoxies grow through peer pressure and disconnecting deviants from the network. &#0160;It doesn&#39;t innovate. &#0160;It rejects, cajoles, and pillories.</li> <li>This online orthodoxy is growing at an accelerated pace because Trump feeds the outrage that fuels it.</li> </ul> <p>How will an orthodox network govern? &#0160;It will eventually formalize compliance with the orthodoxy. Compliance, evidenced by a long social networking history, will qualify people for positions of authority and power. Any deviation will result in bans, loss of income, etc. until the target repents. &#0160;This orthodoxy will work in parallel to the rule of law and likely exceed its coercive power over time.</p> <p><strong>Participatory</strong></p> <p>This form of social networking doesn&#39;t have an example in the US yet.</p> <ul> <li>The Movement 5 Star in Italy is a political party run as a social network. &#0160;It is running number one in the polls, has mayor in Rome and Turin, and recently deposed the Prime Minister.</li> <li>The political representatives the M5S sends to Rome must vote the way the party tells them to vote. &#0160;They aren&#39;t independent.</li> <li>The M5S is a participatory political party. &#0160;The people in the party debate the issues and vote on how their representatives should vote in Rome.</li> </ul> <p>The participatory party is still young, but it combines the fluidity of the &quot;insurgency&quot; with the solidarity of &quot;orthodoxy.&quot; &#0160;</p> <ul> <li>A participatory party could be run as a cell phone app. &#0160;This would allow it to <em>scale</em>... to 70 plus million members is possible.&#0160;</li> <li>Unlike current political parties, this party wouldn&#39;t just vote every 2 years to elect candidates. &#0160;It would operate continuously. &#0160;Voting on all major issues.</li> <li>A participatory party could arise independently, growing virally, or it could coopt an existing political party from the inside out.</li> </ul> <p>How would a participatory network govern? &#0160;Unlike the other systems, it has the best chance of working within the confines of the current US Constitution. &#0160;It also has the strength to tame political distortions caused by globalization without resorting to the extremes of either the orthodoxy or the insurgency.</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201bb0977b9ba970d-pi"><img alt="ExpressPass1" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201bb0977b9ba970d img-responsive" src="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201bb0977b9ba970d-320wi" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="ExpressPass1" /></a>My bet is on a participatory political system made possible by social networking. &#0160;It&#39;s the best chance for a better future. &#0160;A system where we put social networking to work for us instead of <em>against</em> us.</p> <p>Of course, the reality is probably something different: <em>we&#39;re prepping for a civil war</em>.</p> <p>Sincerely,</p> <p>John Robb</p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e200d8341bf69853efGlobal Guerrillashttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e00d83451576d69e201b8d25bb5cd970c John Robb posted something http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2017-02-02T21:36:37Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e201b8d25bb5cc970chttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/comment2017-02-02T21:36:37Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451576d69e2John Robbhttp://profile.typepad.com/johnrobbtag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e200d8341bf69853efGlobal Guerrillashttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e00d83451576d69e201b8d25b9ff3970c John Robb posted an entry http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2017-02-02T17:43:11Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e201b7c8d14f2e970bHow Trump's Use of Social Networking Changes Governancehttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2017-02-02T17:43:11Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451576d69e2John Robbhttp://profile.typepad.com/johnrobb<p>The Trump presidency operates very differently (obviously) than those of his post-WW2 predecessors. &#0160;First off, its goals are completely different: &#0160;<a href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2017/01/the-rollback-of-neoliberalism.html">it&#39;s dismantling the neoliberal system</a>. &#0160;A system that earlier administrations built up over decades. &#0160;Second, and equally as interestingly, it operates more like a network than a&#0160;bureaucracy. &#0160;Specifically, the Trump administration is:</p> <ul> <li>More autocratic than bureaucratic. &#0160;Single decision maker (<em>softly</em> autocratic) rather than decision through a consensus of bureaucratic elites. &#0160;This is faster, particularly within a network setting, but more prone to error.<br /><br /></li> <li>More socially networked than hierarchically networked. Its&#0160;external social network is on the same level as the governmental bureaucracy. &#0160;The social network is now a means of governance on par with the bureaucracy. &#0160;&#0160;<br /><br /></li> <li>National governance isn&#39;t just&#0160;in Washington anymore, it&#39;s be conducted everywhere at once. &#0160;Everyone, from the government bureaucrat to the corporate executive to the owner of a Twitter account is now an active participant. &#0160;It is now much more participatory than it has EVER been.</li> </ul> <p><strong>Reactivity</strong></p> <p>What makes Trump&#39;s networked autocracy (potentially) effective is in how it stays reactive to the rapidly evolving needs of its supporters. &#0160;It does this through:</p> <ul> <li><strong>Big Data Analysis</strong>: &#0160;Both Bannon&#39;s <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trumps-plan-for-a-comeback-includes-building-a-psychographic-profile-of-every-voter/2016/10/27/9064a706-9611-11e6-9b7c-57290af48a49_story.html?utm_term=.593862df50de">Cambridge Analytica</a> and Kushner&#39;s <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenbertoni/2016/11/22/exclusive-interview-how-jared-kushner-won-trump-the-white-house/#37718482f50f">San Antonio Moneyball operation</a>&#0160;dig deeply into social networks to profile voters.<br /><br /></li> <li><strong>Online chatter</strong>: &#0160;Direct online feedback on Twitter or Facebook, as well as chatter in groups like <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/">the_Donald</a>, the&#0160;358,000 member pro-Trump social network on Reddit.<br /><br /></li> <li><strong>Intuition</strong>: &#0160;A salesman&#39;s gut. &#0160;All Trump. &#0160;Trump has an intuitive feel for what the target audience wants and needs. &#0160;A gut that&#39;s greatly enhanced by feedback from social networks.&#0160;<br /><br /></li> </ul> <p><strong>Reactive Networked Autocracy</strong></p> <p>Based on these differences and the evidence of the first few weeks, we can expect this administration&#39;s style of&#0160;governance to operate very differently than the legacy cold war bureaucracy that ran our country since WW2. &#0160; Here are some of the major changes:</p> <ul> <li><strong>Incremental change vs. Rapid change</strong>. &#0160;Bureaucrats make changes slowly and incrementally. &#0160;Autocrats can make wholesale changes. &#0160; Social networking makes it possible to route around bureaucratic roadblocks to create de facto change before the bureaucracy can catch up. &#0160;&#0160;<br /><br /></li> <li><strong>Adherence to Ideology vs. Adherence to Common Sense</strong>. &#0160;US bureaucratic governance is based on neoliberal ideology and the sciences of social complexity (economics, etc.). &#0160; Social networking has made people increasingly aware to the gap&#0160;between results/common sense and ideology/models (a similar gap toppled the USSR). &#0160;Trump exploits that gap.<br /><br /></li> <li><strong>Serial vs. Parallel focus</strong>. &#0160;Bureaucratic governance mass media coverage focuses on one&#0160;problem at a time (serially), or as closely to that as possible. &#0160;In contrast, networked governance can focus on many in parallel. &#0160;This makes it very difficult for gatekeepers to exercise control.</li> </ul> <p>Sincerely,</p> <p>John Robb</p> <p>PS: &#0160;Despite expectations, even policies that look deeply unpopular errors (like the travel ban on 7 countries) are actually supported by a popular plurality of Americans. &#0160;Here&#39;s the seemingly (given the coverage) impossible results of a recent national Quinnipiac poll that had a question on a travel ban.</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b7c8d16d8f970b-pi" style="display: inline;"><img alt="C3dPV4bXAAAF4QD" border="0" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b7c8d16d8f970b image-full img-responsive" src="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b7c8d16d8f970b-800wi" title="C3dPV4bXAAAF4QD" /></a><br /> &#0160;</p> <p>The Trump presidency operates very differently (obviously) than those of his post-WW2 predecessors. &#0160;First off, its goals are completely different: &#0160;<a href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2017/01/the-rollback-of-neoliberalism.html">it&#39;s dismantling the neoliberal system</a>. &#0160;A system that earlier administrations built up over decades. &#0160;Second, and equally as interestingly, it operates more like a network than a&#0160;bureaucracy. &#0160;Specifically, the Trump administration is:</p> <ul> <li>More autocratic than bureaucratic. &#0160;Single decision maker (<em>softly</em> autocratic) rather than decision through a consensus of bureaucratic elites. &#0160;This is faster, particularly within a network setting, but more prone to error.<br /><br /></li> <li>More socially networked than hierarchically networked. Its&#0160;external social network is on the same level as the governmental bureaucracy. &#0160;The social network is now a means of governance on par with the bureaucracy. &#0160;&#0160;<br /><br /></li> <li>National governance isn&#39;t just&#0160;in Washington anymore, it&#39;s be conducted everywhere at once. &#0160;Everyone, from the government bureaucrat to the corporate executive to the owner of a Twitter account is now an active participant. &#0160;It is now much more participatory than it has EVER been.</li> </ul> <p><strong>Reactivity</strong></p> <p>What makes Trump&#39;s networked autocracy (potentially) effective is in how it stays reactive to the rapidly evolving needs of its supporters. &#0160;It does this through:</p> <ul> <li><strong>Big Data Analysis</strong>: &#0160;Both Bannon&#39;s <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trumps-plan-for-a-comeback-includes-building-a-psychographic-profile-of-every-voter/2016/10/27/9064a706-9611-11e6-9b7c-57290af48a49_story.html?utm_term=.593862df50de">Cambridge Analytica</a> and Kushner&#39;s <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenbertoni/2016/11/22/exclusive-interview-how-jared-kushner-won-trump-the-white-house/#37718482f50f">San Antonio Moneyball operation</a>&#0160;dig deeply into social networks to profile voters.<br /><br /></li> <li><strong>Online chatter</strong>: &#0160;Direct online feedback on Twitter or Facebook, as well as chatter in groups like <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/">the_Donald</a>, the&#0160;358,000 member pro-Trump social network on Reddit.<br /><br /></li> <li><strong>Intuition</strong>: &#0160;A salesman&#39;s gut. &#0160;All Trump. &#0160;Trump has an intuitive feel for what the target audience wants and needs. &#0160;A gut that&#39;s greatly enhanced by feedback from social networks.&#0160;<br /><br /></li> </ul> <p><strong>Reactive Networked Autocracy</strong></p> <p>Based on these differences and the evidence of the first few weeks, we can expect this administration&#39;s style of&#0160;governance to operate very differently than the legacy cold war bureaucracy that ran our country since WW2. &#0160; Here are some of the major changes:</p> <ul> <li><strong>Incremental change vs. Rapid change</strong>. &#0160;Bureaucrats make changes slowly and incrementally. &#0160;Autocrats can make wholesale changes. &#0160; Social networking makes it possible to route around bureaucratic roadblocks to create de facto change before the bureaucracy can catch up. &#0160;&#0160;<br /><br /></li> <li><strong>Adherence to Ideology vs. Adherence to Common Sense</strong>. &#0160;US bureaucratic governance is based on neoliberal ideology and the sciences of social complexity (economics, etc.). &#0160; Social networking has made people increasingly aware to the gap&#0160;between results/common sense and ideology/models (a similar gap toppled the USSR). &#0160;Trump exploits that gap.<br /><br /></li> <li><strong>Serial vs. Parallel focus</strong>. &#0160;Bureaucratic governance mass media coverage focuses on one&#0160;problem at a time (serially), or as closely to that as possible. &#0160;In contrast, networked governance can focus on many in parallel. &#0160;This makes it very difficult for gatekeepers to exercise control.</li> </ul> <p>Sincerely,</p> <p>John Robb</p> <p>PS: &#0160;Despite expectations, even policies that look deeply unpopular errors (like the travel ban on 7 countries) are actually supported by a popular plurality of Americans. &#0160;Here&#39;s the seemingly (given the coverage) impossible results of a recent national Quinnipiac poll that had a question on a travel ban.</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b7c8d16d8f970b-pi" style="display: inline;"><img alt="C3dPV4bXAAAF4QD" border="0" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b7c8d16d8f970b image-full img-responsive" src="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b7c8d16d8f970b-800wi" title="C3dPV4bXAAAF4QD" /></a><br /> &#0160;</p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e200d8341bf69853efGlobal Guerrillashttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e00d83451576d69e201b8d259e359970c John Robb posted an entry http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2017-01-29T15:35:50Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e201b7c8cf9200970bTrump's Rollback of the Neoliberal Market Statehttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2017-01-29T15:35:49Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451576d69e2John Robbhttp://profile.typepad.com/johnrobb<p>What is Trump doing?</p> <p>Trump is rolling back neoliberalism and everything connected to it.</p> <p>To understand what this means, here&#39;s a&#0160;narrative of&#0160;Trump&#39;s insurgency. &#0160; It explains what he is doing and what he is likely to do. &#0160;It starts with the rise of neoliberalism.</p> <div class="photo-wrap photo-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b7c8cfa767970b" id="photo-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b7c8cfa767970b" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; width: 320px;"><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b7c8cfa767970b-pi"><img alt="C2sVOgrXAAAGK4s" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b7c8cfa767970b img-responsive" src="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b7c8cfa767970b-320wi" title="C2sVOgrXAAAGK4s" /></a> <div class="photo-caption caption-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b7c8cfa767970b" id="caption-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b7c8cfa767970b">This scene captures the moment (from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas)</div> </div> <p><strong>The rise of Neoliberalism</strong></p> <p>Neoliberalism is an ideology of extreme free market capitalism that was popularized by Thatcher, Reagan, and Pinochet. &#0160;By the end of the cold war in the 90&#39;s, it became the default economic ideology of the United States when both the Republicans and the Democrats adopted it. &#0160;Neoliberalism improved the world. &#0160;Unfettered access to US markets (the most valuable in the world) led to twenty plus years of rapid economic globalization that lifted billions of people out of poverty and made many countries rich. &#0160;However, neoliberalism came at a cost to the US. &#0160; Worse, it destroyed the only engine of prosperity and political stability in the US, the US middle class. &#0160;It did this through:</p> <ul> <li><strong>Asymmetric competition.</strong> &#0160;The US was, and still is, the only major nation in the world to fully embrace neoliberalism. &#0160;Every other country or economic bloc, from China to the EU, has barriers in place to rig the market to create or protect good jobs at home (think: &#0160;Germany, China, South Korea, Japan...). &#0160;These barriers work and incomes in these countries has zoomed while US incomes stagnated. &#0160;<br /><br /></li> <li><strong>The Neoliberal Trade (jobs out, wealth in).</strong> &#0160; For decades, the US traded millions of good jobs in manufacturing and services for tens of thousands of amazing jobs on Wall Street (NY) and Silicon Valley (CA). &#0160; This inflow of wealth at the topline created a sense of prosperity even though the median income and the quality of life of the middle class collapsed. &#0160;<br /><br /></li> <li><strong>Non-cooperative elites.</strong> &#0160;It didn&#39;t take long before the power and the wealth of the elites benefiting from unfettered&#0160;globalization&#0160;became immense. &#0160;In fact, these US neoliberal elites became so powerful, they were able to completely opt out of the US system of taxation -- none of the elites, from Apple to Google to Wall Street banks/funds to the wealthiest American citizens pay taxes. &#0160;With most of the wealth generated by the&#0160;US immune to taxation,&#0160;the US government quickly became a bankruptcy in progress ($20 trillion in debt and growing fast). &#0160;Worse, this perpetual fiscal crisis eliminated any chance that government services&#0160;(like in health care, retirement, etc. proposed by Bernie Sanders) could be formulated to cushion the damage done by neoliberal economics.</li> </ul> <p><strong>The Neoliberal Market State</strong></p> <p>The effects of neoliberalism put US political elites in a bind. &#0160;Neoliberalism made it impossible for the US, as it had for two centuries, to grow the middle class economically anymore. &#0160;The US economy didn&#39;t provide good jobs&#0160;to the middle class anymore due to <em>the neoliberal trade</em>&#0160;and it didn&#39;t have the funds to cushion the loss of income with services due to the tax avoidance of <em>non-cooperative US elites</em>. &#0160;So, it decided to double down on neoliberal ideology by applying it to US cultural identity. &#0160; Cultural neoliberalism now became the primary political good of the state. &#0160;By making this shift it became what my friend&#0160;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0385721382/ref=nosim/globalguerril-20">Philip Bobbitt</a>&#0160;predicted in his epic 2002 book, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0385721382/ref=nosim/globalguerril-20">The Shield of Achilles</a>:&#0160;a <strong><em>market state</em></strong>. &#0160; A market state, in contrast to the nation-state&#39;s focus on broad economic prosperity and cultural integration, focuses on providing opportunity to the individual. &#0160;Although Bobbitt couldn&#39;t articulate it fully at the time (none of us could), the US market state provided <em>opportunity</em> to individuals through:</p> <ul> <li><strong>Open borders</strong>. &#0160;Low barriers immigration. &#0160;H-1B visas and green cards galore. &#0160;Citizen of the world. &#0160;Work and live anywhere. &#0160;Borders controls should be lax. &#0160;<em>Extreme version</em>: &#0160;sanctuary cities, illegal immigrants become undocumented immigrants<br /><br /></li> <li><strong>Expanded identity</strong>. &#0160;Become whoever you want to become. <a href="http://www.mtv.co.uk/pride/news/lgbtq-acronym-guide">LGBTQIAPK</a>.... &#0160;&gt;&gt; &#0160;Intersectional feminism. &#0160;Affirmative action and associated efforts at compensating past discrimination. &#0160;<em>Extreme version</em>: patriarchy, cis gender, &quot;old white men&quot; &#0160;<br /><br /></li> <li><strong>Multiculturalism</strong>. &#0160;Anti-assimilation. &#0160;All cultures celebrated. &#0160;Expanded cultural identity revered (hyphenated). &#0160;Cultural resurrection and diversity. &#0160;<em>Extreme version</em>: &#0160;traditional US culture was/is inferior to all other global cultures, deprecation of tradition as biased/flawed</li> </ul> <p><br /><strong>The Crisis of the Neoliberal Market State</strong></p> <p>As we now know, the rise of the neoliberal market-state didn&#39;t actually solve the internal contradiction of the neoliberal economics -- that barrier free trade allows a few people to take everything at the expense of everyone else. &#0160;Like its economic cousin, cultural neoliberalism only benefited a minority of Americans (particularly those already benefiting from economic neoliberalism in NY and CA) while offering nothing but increasingly acrimonious identity politics to the majority. &#0160;All of this might have continued indefinitely, but for the financial crisis of 2008. &#0160;That crisis set in motion a deep unrest within the majority. &#0160;An unrest that powers Trump&#39;s socially networked insurgency. &#0160;An insurgency that is now actively dismantling the neoliberal market state through the following: &#0160;</p> <ul> <li>Reversing economic neoliberalism by actively support job creation domestically like all other countries (from China to Germany). &#0160;More mercantilist. &#0160; Success measured in good jobs created instead of extreme wealth accrued. &#0160;Trump to workers: &#0160;&quot;I&#39;m fighting for you&quot;<br /><br /></li> <li>Reversing cultural neoliberalism by building strong borders, controlling immigration, and demanding integration with traditional culture. &#0160;Provoking &#0160;identity politics to create confusion. &#0160;Trump tells his insurgency: &#0160;you are &quot;the best&quot;<br /><br /></li> <li>Finally, and most importantly to me, Trump isn&#39;t dismantling neoliberalism to return to the old nation-state. &#0160;He&#39;s building, with the help of social networking, a new model of governance for the US. &#0160;One that operates more like Russia and China does (a reactive authoritarianism).</li> </ul> <p>Sincerely,</p> <p>John Robb</p> <p>PS: &#0160;Here <a href="https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0385721382/ref=nosim/globalguerril-20">Bobbitt&#39;s book</a> on the market state. &#0160;</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0385721382/ref=nosim/globalguerril-20" style="display: inline;"><img alt="Images" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b7c8cfa495970b img-responsive" src="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b7c8cfa495970b-120wi" title="Images" /></a></p> <p>What is Trump doing?</p> <p>Trump is rolling back neoliberalism and everything connected to it.</p> <p>To understand what this means, here&#39;s a&#0160;narrative of&#0160;Trump&#39;s insurgency. &#0160; It explains what he is doing and what he is likely to do. &#0160;It starts with the rise of neoliberalism.</p> <div class="photo-wrap photo-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b7c8cfa767970b" id="photo-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b7c8cfa767970b" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; width: 320px;"><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b7c8cfa767970b-pi"><img alt="C2sVOgrXAAAGK4s" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b7c8cfa767970b img-responsive" src="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b7c8cfa767970b-320wi" title="C2sVOgrXAAAGK4s" /></a> <div class="photo-caption caption-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b7c8cfa767970b" id="caption-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b7c8cfa767970b">This scene captures the moment (from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas)</div> </div> <p><strong>The rise of Neoliberalism</strong></p> <p>Neoliberalism is an ideology of extreme free market capitalism that was popularized by Thatcher, Reagan, and Pinochet. &#0160;By the end of the cold war in the 90&#39;s, it became the default economic ideology of the United States when both the Republicans and the Democrats adopted it. &#0160;Neoliberalism improved the world. &#0160;Unfettered access to US markets (the most valuable in the world) led to twenty plus years of rapid economic globalization that lifted billions of people out of poverty and made many countries rich. &#0160;However, neoliberalism came at a cost to the US. &#0160; Worse, it destroyed the only engine of prosperity and political stability in the US, the US middle class. &#0160;It did this through:</p> <ul> <li><strong>Asymmetric competition.</strong> &#0160;The US was, and still is, the only major nation in the world to fully embrace neoliberalism. &#0160;Every other country or economic bloc, from China to the EU, has barriers in place to rig the market to create or protect good jobs at home (think: &#0160;Germany, China, South Korea, Japan...). &#0160;These barriers work and incomes in these countries has zoomed while US incomes stagnated. &#0160;<br /><br /></li> <li><strong>The Neoliberal Trade (jobs out, wealth in).</strong> &#0160; For decades, the US traded millions of good jobs in manufacturing and services for tens of thousands of amazing jobs on Wall Street (NY) and Silicon Valley (CA). &#0160; This inflow of wealth at the topline created a sense of prosperity even though the median income and the quality of life of the middle class collapsed. &#0160;<br /><br /></li> <li><strong>Non-cooperative elites.</strong> &#0160;It didn&#39;t take long before the power and the wealth of the elites benefiting from unfettered&#0160;globalization&#0160;became immense. &#0160;In fact, these US neoliberal elites became so powerful, they were able to completely opt out of the US system of taxation -- none of the elites, from Apple to Google to Wall Street banks/funds to the wealthiest American citizens pay taxes. &#0160;With most of the wealth generated by the&#0160;US immune to taxation,&#0160;the US government quickly became a bankruptcy in progress ($20 trillion in debt and growing fast). &#0160;Worse, this perpetual fiscal crisis eliminated any chance that government services&#0160;(like in health care, retirement, etc. proposed by Bernie Sanders) could be formulated to cushion the damage done by neoliberal economics.</li> </ul> <p><strong>The Neoliberal Market State</strong></p> <p>The effects of neoliberalism put US political elites in a bind. &#0160;Neoliberalism made it impossible for the US, as it had for two centuries, to grow the middle class economically anymore. &#0160;The US economy didn&#39;t provide good jobs&#0160;to the middle class anymore due to <em>the neoliberal trade</em>&#0160;and it didn&#39;t have the funds to cushion the loss of income with services due to the tax avoidance of <em>non-cooperative US elites</em>. &#0160;So, it decided to double down on neoliberal ideology by applying it to US cultural identity. &#0160; Cultural neoliberalism now became the primary political good of the state. &#0160;By making this shift it became what my friend&#0160;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0385721382/ref=nosim/globalguerril-20">Philip Bobbitt</a>&#0160;predicted in his epic 2002 book, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0385721382/ref=nosim/globalguerril-20">The Shield of Achilles</a>:&#0160;a <strong><em>market state</em></strong>. &#0160; A market state, in contrast to the nation-state&#39;s focus on broad economic prosperity and cultural integration, focuses on providing opportunity to the individual. &#0160;Although Bobbitt couldn&#39;t articulate it fully at the time (none of us could), the US market state provided <em>opportunity</em> to individuals through:</p> <ul> <li><strong>Open borders</strong>. &#0160;Low barriers immigration. &#0160;H-1B visas and green cards galore. &#0160;Citizen of the world. &#0160;Work and live anywhere. &#0160;Borders controls should be lax. &#0160;<em>Extreme version</em>: &#0160;sanctuary cities, illegal immigrants become undocumented immigrants<br /><br /></li> <li><strong>Expanded identity</strong>. &#0160;Become whoever you want to become. <a href="http://www.mtv.co.uk/pride/news/lgbtq-acronym-guide">LGBTQIAPK</a>.... &#0160;&gt;&gt; &#0160;Intersectional feminism. &#0160;Affirmative action and associated efforts at compensating past discrimination. &#0160;<em>Extreme version</em>: patriarchy, cis gender, &quot;old white men&quot; &#0160;<br /><br /></li> <li><strong>Multiculturalism</strong>. &#0160;Anti-assimilation. &#0160;All cultures celebrated. &#0160;Expanded cultural identity revered (hyphenated). &#0160;Cultural resurrection and diversity. &#0160;<em>Extreme version</em>: &#0160;traditional US culture was/is inferior to all other global cultures, deprecation of tradition as biased/flawed</li> </ul> <p><br /><strong>The Crisis of the Neoliberal Market State</strong></p> <p>As we now know, the rise of the neoliberal market-state didn&#39;t actually solve the internal contradiction of the neoliberal economics -- that barrier free trade allows a few people to take everything at the expense of everyone else. &#0160;Like its economic cousin, cultural neoliberalism only benefited a minority of Americans (particularly those already benefiting from economic neoliberalism in NY and CA) while offering nothing but increasingly acrimonious identity politics to the majority. &#0160;All of this might have continued indefinitely, but for the financial crisis of 2008. &#0160;That crisis set in motion a deep unrest within the majority. &#0160;An unrest that powers Trump&#39;s socially networked insurgency. &#0160;An insurgency that is now actively dismantling the neoliberal market state through the following: &#0160;</p> <ul> <li>Reversing economic neoliberalism by actively support job creation domestically like all other countries (from China to Germany). &#0160;More mercantilist. &#0160; Success measured in good jobs created instead of extreme wealth accrued. &#0160;Trump to workers: &#0160;&quot;I&#39;m fighting for you&quot;<br /><br /></li> <li>Reversing cultural neoliberalism by building strong borders, controlling immigration, and demanding integration with traditional culture. &#0160;Provoking &#0160;identity politics to create confusion. &#0160;Trump tells his insurgency: &#0160;you are &quot;the best&quot;<br /><br /></li> <li>Finally, and most importantly to me, Trump isn&#39;t dismantling neoliberalism to return to the old nation-state. &#0160;He&#39;s building, with the help of social networking, a new model of governance for the US. &#0160;One that operates more like Russia and China does (a reactive authoritarianism).</li> </ul> <p>Sincerely,</p> <p>John Robb</p> <p>PS: &#0160;Here <a href="https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0385721382/ref=nosim/globalguerril-20">Bobbitt&#39;s book</a> on the market state. &#0160;</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0385721382/ref=nosim/globalguerril-20" style="display: inline;"><img alt="Images" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b7c8cfa495970b img-responsive" src="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b7c8cfa495970b-120wi" title="Images" /></a></p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e200d8341bf69853efGlobal Guerrillashttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e00d83451576d69e201bb0971ba8f970d John Robb posted an entry http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2017-01-26T19:07:00Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e201b7c8ce5ad6970bHow Networked Propaganda Unraveled US Politicshttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2017-01-26T19:07:00Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451576d69e2John Robbhttp://profile.typepad.com/johnrobb<p>A simple to change to how propaganda is developed and distributed has fundamentally altered US politics.&#0160;</p> <p>For our purposes, propaganda is the <em>systematic</em> use of...</p> <ul> <li>biased,</li> <li>false, and/or</li> <li>misleading</li> </ul> <p>...information to influence the decision making of a target audience. &#0160;</p> <p>What makes propaganda different than getting conned by a used car salesman is that propaganda is systematic -- i.g. it uses the media to influence groups of people. &#0160;Even though we don&#39;t want to admit it, propaganda is the essence of political (as well as economic) competition, from the local election to superpower conflict during the cold war. &#0160;Propaganda (from commercial brands to political ideologies) is everywhere and we soak in it every day. &#0160;</p> <p>Until recently, propaganda has been limited to governments (and corporations in the commercial realm) because it was expensive and difficult to do, particularly at a scale that influenced national political discourse. &#0160;As of this last election, it&#39;s clear that era is over.</p> <p>The social networking I helped get going back in 2001 now makes it possible for nearly anyone to conduct a propaganda campaign, and that change is blowing up our political system (to good or ill), fast... &#0160;</p> <p>Here&#39;s what changed. &#0160;Political propaganda is shaped by the medium of media it is dependent on. &#0160;Up until recently, that medium has been broadcast media. &#0160;This created the following dynamic:</p> <ul> <li>The high cost of broadcast media (raise the most money and you usually win)</li> <li>reduces the number of&#0160;participants (two major parties with tens of thousands working in their hierarchies)&#0160;</li> <li>repeating fewer messages (&quot;It&#39;s the economy stupid&quot;).</li> </ul> <p>On the positive side, the broadcast dynamic forces broad coalitions and consensus. &#0160;On the negative, it produces stasis and stagnation. &#0160;We had both until this election. &#0160;In this last political season, broadcast propaganda was rapidly replaced by socially networked propaganda. &#0160;A replacement that was accelerated by a presidential candidate who by natural inclination was drawn to it. &#0160;Socially networked propaganda has a radically different dynamic:</p> <ul> <li>Lower costs (nearly zero)</li> <li>makes it possible for a huge number of participants (millions, in sprawling networks)</li> <li>producing, adding to, and sharing a huge variety of political messages (supporting and attacking from every angle).</li> </ul> <p>As you can see, the negative side of this dynamic is that it splinters and fragments consensus by enabling lots of different narratives. &#0160; The positive side is that it is extremely responsive and innovative. &#0160;</p> <p>So what does the shift from broadcast to socially networked propaganda&#0160;mean? &#0160;How will it change our politics? &#0160;It suggests that <em>traditional political discourse is over</em>&#0160;since reasoned political debate and decision making is now impossible in this environment. &#0160;It also means that until we find a way to harness this new medium, a new political dynamic will dominate. &#0160;A dynamic characterised by cacophony:</p> <ul> <li>All political discourse is at risk of becoming a&#0160;<strong>cacophony </strong>of networked propaganda (see my article on the <a href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2017/01/the-race-to-weaponize-empathy.html">Russell Conjugation</a> to see how facts are turned into propaganda).</li> <li>Some political leaders learn how to create <strong>a cacophony on demand</strong> (Trump) by enticing the production of networked propaganda. &#0160;</li> <li>Over time, non-cooperative networked groups/tribes produce so much propaganda, <strong>the cacophony becomes&#0160;perpetual.</strong></li> </ul> <p>Sincerely,</p> <p>John Robb</p> <p>PS: &#0160;The <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/01/25/trade-trumps-national-security-in-trumps-worldview-thats-really-bad-news-for-china/?utm_term=.d8d062187748">Washington Post picked up my article</a> on Trump&#39;s inversion of US foreign policy. &#0160;Worth a read. &#0160;<br />PPS: &#0160;China isn&#39;t going to benefit from the US withdrawal from TPP. &#0160;Why? &#0160;It&#39;s an aggressive exporter and most of the other nations in TPP are (or want to be) too.</p> <p>A simple to change to how propaganda is developed and distributed has fundamentally altered US politics.&#0160;</p> <p>For our purposes, propaganda is the <em>systematic</em> use of...</p> <ul> <li>biased,</li> <li>false, and/or</li> <li>misleading</li> </ul> <p>...information to influence the decision making of a target audience. &#0160;</p> <p>What makes propaganda different than getting conned by a used car salesman is that propaganda is systematic -- i.g. it uses the media to influence groups of people. &#0160;Even though we don&#39;t want to admit it, propaganda is the essence of political (as well as economic) competition, from the local election to superpower conflict during the cold war. &#0160;Propaganda (from commercial brands to political ideologies) is everywhere and we soak in it every day. &#0160;</p> <p>Until recently, propaganda has been limited to governments (and corporations in the commercial realm) because it was expensive and difficult to do, particularly at a scale that influenced national political discourse. &#0160;As of this last election, it&#39;s clear that era is over.</p> <p>The social networking I helped get going back in 2001 now makes it possible for nearly anyone to conduct a propaganda campaign, and that change is blowing up our political system (to good or ill), fast... &#0160;</p> <p>Here&#39;s what changed. &#0160;Political propaganda is shaped by the medium of media it is dependent on. &#0160;Up until recently, that medium has been broadcast media. &#0160;This created the following dynamic:</p> <ul> <li>The high cost of broadcast media (raise the most money and you usually win)</li> <li>reduces the number of&#0160;participants (two major parties with tens of thousands working in their hierarchies)&#0160;</li> <li>repeating fewer messages (&quot;It&#39;s the economy stupid&quot;).</li> </ul> <p>On the positive side, the broadcast dynamic forces broad coalitions and consensus. &#0160;On the negative, it produces stasis and stagnation. &#0160;We had both until this election. &#0160;In this last political season, broadcast propaganda was rapidly replaced by socially networked propaganda. &#0160;A replacement that was accelerated by a presidential candidate who by natural inclination was drawn to it. &#0160;Socially networked propaganda has a radically different dynamic:</p> <ul> <li>Lower costs (nearly zero)</li> <li>makes it possible for a huge number of participants (millions, in sprawling networks)</li> <li>producing, adding to, and sharing a huge variety of political messages (supporting and attacking from every angle).</li> </ul> <p>As you can see, the negative side of this dynamic is that it splinters and fragments consensus by enabling lots of different narratives. &#0160; The positive side is that it is extremely responsive and innovative. &#0160;</p> <p>So what does the shift from broadcast to socially networked propaganda&#0160;mean? &#0160;How will it change our politics? &#0160;It suggests that <em>traditional political discourse is over</em>&#0160;since reasoned political debate and decision making is now impossible in this environment. &#0160;It also means that until we find a way to harness this new medium, a new political dynamic will dominate. &#0160;A dynamic characterised by cacophony:</p> <ul> <li>All political discourse is at risk of becoming a&#0160;<strong>cacophony </strong>of networked propaganda (see my article on the <a href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2017/01/the-race-to-weaponize-empathy.html">Russell Conjugation</a> to see how facts are turned into propaganda).</li> <li>Some political leaders learn how to create <strong>a cacophony on demand</strong> (Trump) by enticing the production of networked propaganda. &#0160;</li> <li>Over time, non-cooperative networked groups/tribes produce so much propaganda, <strong>the cacophony becomes&#0160;perpetual.</strong></li> </ul> <p>Sincerely,</p> <p>John Robb</p> <p>PS: &#0160;The <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/01/25/trade-trumps-national-security-in-trumps-worldview-thats-really-bad-news-for-china/?utm_term=.d8d062187748">Washington Post picked up my article</a> on Trump&#39;s inversion of US foreign policy. &#0160;Worth a read. &#0160;<br />PPS: &#0160;China isn&#39;t going to benefit from the US withdrawal from TPP. &#0160;Why? &#0160;It&#39;s an aggressive exporter and most of the other nations in TPP are (or want to be) too.</p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e200d8341bf69853efGlobal Guerrillashttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e00d83451576d69e201b8d257ca46970c John Robb posted an entry http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2017-01-24T18:45:34Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e201bb0970ba75970dOpen Loop Nationhttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2017-01-24T18:45:33Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451576d69e2John Robbhttp://profile.typepad.com/johnrobb<p>The US, as a socio-economic system, is now running <em>open loop</em>. &#0160;</p> <p>Not only that, it&#39;s running open loop in an extremely chaotic environment and that&#39;s bad news. &#0160;While open loop systems are extremely stable under controlled conditions, they can be just the opposite in complex, rapidly changing or uncertain environments. &#0160;In those environments they fail quickly or worse: &#0160;they run amok. &#0160; &#0160;</p> <p>What is open loop? &#0160;<em>Open loop</em> is a concept from control theory, but anybody who has ever worked with machines is already familiar with it. &#0160;</p> <p>In a nutshell, an open loop system doesn&#39;t use a feedback loop to modify its performance, it&#0160;simply runs at the level you set them at until you turn it off or it runs out of fuel. &#0160;A closed loop system is just the opposite. &#0160;It modifies its performance based on changing conditions.</p> <p>For example, its the difference between a fire in your fireplace that burns until it&#39;s out of wood&#0160;and a home heating system that turns on&#0160;and off based on the temperature you set. &#0160;</p> <p>So how does this apply to something as big and complex as the&#0160;US? &#0160;</p> <p>The US is a socioeconomic system. &#0160;We built it. &#0160;For the last hundred years it&#39;s been a closed system. &#0160;That means it:</p> <ul> <li>has levers and mechanisms for adjusting its performance.</li> <li>can measure its effectiveness relative to achieved results. &#0160;</li> <li>can mitigate any damage or exploit opportunity when&#0160;the environment or situation changes. &#0160;</li> </ul> <p>However, those levers and mechanisms have frayed over the last couple of decades:</p> <ul> <li>The levers and mechanisms of control the US has available to manager our socio-economic system are too weak to do so anymore. &#0160;From the Fed ZIRP to a chaotic media to porous borders to companies that avoid paying any taxes (Google, Apple, etc.).</li> <li>There is no consensus over what constitutes success. &#0160;Who should benefit and how should they benefit? &#0160;Should we let the market dictate everything or allocate success based on identity or should we build a prosperous middle class? &#0160;</li> <li>We&#39;ve blundered into failures with security (9/11 to Iraq to ISIS), domestic development (rustbelt and Katrina response) to economic progress (the non-response to the financial crisis that we still haven&#39;t recovered from nearly a decade later). &#0160;&#0160;</li> </ul> <p>Now, there are forces at work in the US, driven by ubiquitous globalization and&#0160;a rapid expansion in Internet social connectivity. &#0160;More importantly, from Trump&#39;s disruptive governance to a women&#39;s protest&#0160;that was 3x bigger than any protest in US history, these new forces have exceed the ability of the US institutions to respond. &#0160;</p> <p>What does&#0160;this mean? &#0160;</p> <p>The US doesn&#39;t have a control system anymore. &#0160;It&#39;s open loop. &#0160;</p> <p>Sincerely,&#0160;</p> <p>John Robb</p> <p>PS: &#0160;There&#39;s a <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/01/30/doomsday-prep-for-the-super-rich">good article in the New Yorker</a> on how many of the super rich on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley are now doomsday preppers. &#0160;</p> <p>The US, as a socio-economic system, is now running <em>open loop</em>. &#0160;</p> <p>Not only that, it&#39;s running open loop in an extremely chaotic environment and that&#39;s bad news. &#0160;While open loop systems are extremely stable under controlled conditions, they can be just the opposite in complex, rapidly changing or uncertain environments. &#0160;In those environments they fail quickly or worse: &#0160;they run amok. &#0160; &#0160;</p> <p>What is open loop? &#0160;<em>Open loop</em> is a concept from control theory, but anybody who has ever worked with machines is already familiar with it. &#0160;</p> <p>In a nutshell, an open loop system doesn&#39;t use a feedback loop to modify its performance, it&#0160;simply runs at the level you set them at until you turn it off or it runs out of fuel. &#0160;A closed loop system is just the opposite. &#0160;It modifies its performance based on changing conditions.</p> <p>For example, its the difference between a fire in your fireplace that burns until it&#39;s out of wood&#0160;and a home heating system that turns on&#0160;and off based on the temperature you set. &#0160;</p> <p>So how does this apply to something as big and complex as the&#0160;US? &#0160;</p> <p>The US is a socioeconomic system. &#0160;We built it. &#0160;For the last hundred years it&#39;s been a closed system. &#0160;That means it:</p> <ul> <li>has levers and mechanisms for adjusting its performance.</li> <li>can measure its effectiveness relative to achieved results. &#0160;</li> <li>can mitigate any damage or exploit opportunity when&#0160;the environment or situation changes. &#0160;</li> </ul> <p>However, those levers and mechanisms have frayed over the last couple of decades:</p> <ul> <li>The levers and mechanisms of control the US has available to manager our socio-economic system are too weak to do so anymore. &#0160;From the Fed ZIRP to a chaotic media to porous borders to companies that avoid paying any taxes (Google, Apple, etc.).</li> <li>There is no consensus over what constitutes success. &#0160;Who should benefit and how should they benefit? &#0160;Should we let the market dictate everything or allocate success based on identity or should we build a prosperous middle class? &#0160;</li> <li>We&#39;ve blundered into failures with security (9/11 to Iraq to ISIS), domestic development (rustbelt and Katrina response) to economic progress (the non-response to the financial crisis that we still haven&#39;t recovered from nearly a decade later). &#0160;&#0160;</li> </ul> <p>Now, there are forces at work in the US, driven by ubiquitous globalization and&#0160;a rapid expansion in Internet social connectivity. &#0160;More importantly, from Trump&#39;s disruptive governance to a women&#39;s protest&#0160;that was 3x bigger than any protest in US history, these new forces have exceed the ability of the US institutions to respond. &#0160;</p> <p>What does&#0160;this mean? &#0160;</p> <p>The US doesn&#39;t have a control system anymore. &#0160;It&#39;s open loop. &#0160;</p> <p>Sincerely,&#0160;</p> <p>John Robb</p> <p>PS: &#0160;There&#39;s a <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/01/30/doomsday-prep-for-the-super-rich">good article in the New Yorker</a> on how many of the super rich on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley are now doomsday preppers. &#0160;</p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e200d8341bf69853efGlobal Guerrillashttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e00d83451576d69e201bb096f86ce970d John Robb posted an entry http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2017-01-21T20:56:30Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e201bb096f86cc970dThe Open Source Protest To Oust Trump http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2017-01-21T20:56:30Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451576d69e2John Robbhttp://profile.typepad.com/johnrobb<p>Trump&#39;s open source insurgency put him in the White House, will another open source insurgency remove him from it before the next election?</p> <p>Potentially. &#0160;Let&#39;s dive into this. <a href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2016/11/open-source-insurgencies-and-the-future-of-the-united-states.html">Last fall I wrote</a> about the potential for an anti-Trump insurgency in the US that looked very similar to the protest&#0160;that kicked Mubarak out of office in Egypt.&#0160;</p> <p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>Social media amplifies every incident, spreading the anger it evokes like contagion across the country. &#0160;Just watch.&#0160;&#0160;This suggests that the next open source protest we are likely to see will form to force Donald Trump from the Presidency before the next election -- <strong>a Tahrir square moment in cities all across the US</strong>. &#0160;A massive and diverse open source protest that has one simple goal: the immediate removal of Donald Trump from office. &#0160;</em></p> <p>Could this happen? &#0160;</p> <p>Yes. &#0160;The massive, anti-Trump women&#39;s march&#0160;swept every major US city makes it possible. &#0160;</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201bb096f86c5970d-pi" style="display: inline;"><img alt="C2uAqf6XUAEsyla" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201bb096f86c5970d img-responsive" src="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201bb096f86c5970d-320wi" title="C2uAqf6XUAEsyla" /></a></p> <p>Of course, the people who went to this march don&#39;t agree on all of the issues. &#0160;In fact, I&#39;m not sure they agreed on most issues. &#0160;They did, however, all agree on one simple thing: &#0160;Trump shouldn&#39;t be President. &#0160;</p> <p>This agreement and huge size of the protest is what I call the&#0160;<em>plausible promise </em>of an open source protest. &#0160;It demonstrates, to many of the people attending the protest and many on the sidelines, that removing Trump from office through protest may actually be possible. &#0160; &#0160;</p> <p>This&#0160;is a <em>big</em> deal, a plausible promise makes the likelihood of an effort forming to remove Trump from office through aggressive protest,&#0160;<em>much more</em> likely.</p> <p>It&#39;s also a big deal because open source protests are nearly unstoppable. &#0160;Once a protest like this gets going here, it won&#39;t stop until it drives Trump out of office, just like it ousted the leaders of Egypt, Tunisia, Syria, and Libya. &#0160;</p> <p>Sincerely,</p> <p>John Robb</p> <p>PS: &#0160;I wrote about some of these dynamics in my book: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0471780790/ref=nosim/globalguerril-20">Brave New War</a>. &#0160;</p> <p>Trump&#39;s open source insurgency put him in the White House, will another open source insurgency remove him from it before the next election?</p> <p>Potentially. &#0160;Let&#39;s dive into this. <a href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2016/11/open-source-insurgencies-and-the-future-of-the-united-states.html">Last fall I wrote</a> about the potential for an anti-Trump insurgency in the US that looked very similar to the protest&#0160;that kicked Mubarak out of office in Egypt.&#0160;</p> <p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>Social media amplifies every incident, spreading the anger it evokes like contagion across the country. &#0160;Just watch.&#0160;&#0160;This suggests that the next open source protest we are likely to see will form to force Donald Trump from the Presidency before the next election -- <strong>a Tahrir square moment in cities all across the US</strong>. &#0160;A massive and diverse open source protest that has one simple goal: the immediate removal of Donald Trump from office. &#0160;</em></p> <p>Could this happen? &#0160;</p> <p>Yes. &#0160;The massive, anti-Trump women&#39;s march&#0160;swept every major US city makes it possible. &#0160;</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201bb096f86c5970d-pi" style="display: inline;"><img alt="C2uAqf6XUAEsyla" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201bb096f86c5970d img-responsive" src="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201bb096f86c5970d-320wi" title="C2uAqf6XUAEsyla" /></a></p> <p>Of course, the people who went to this march don&#39;t agree on all of the issues. &#0160;In fact, I&#39;m not sure they agreed on most issues. &#0160;They did, however, all agree on one simple thing: &#0160;Trump shouldn&#39;t be President. &#0160;</p> <p>This agreement and huge size of the protest is what I call the&#0160;<em>plausible promise </em>of an open source protest. &#0160;It demonstrates, to many of the people attending the protest and many on the sidelines, that removing Trump from office through protest may actually be possible. &#0160; &#0160;</p> <p>This&#0160;is a <em>big</em> deal, a plausible promise makes the likelihood of an effort forming to remove Trump from office through aggressive protest,&#0160;<em>much more</em> likely.</p> <p>It&#39;s also a big deal because open source protests are nearly unstoppable. &#0160;Once a protest like this gets going here, it won&#39;t stop until it drives Trump out of office, just like it ousted the leaders of Egypt, Tunisia, Syria, and Libya. &#0160;</p> <p>Sincerely,</p> <p>John Robb</p> <p>PS: &#0160;I wrote about some of these dynamics in my book: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0471780790/ref=nosim/globalguerril-20">Brave New War</a>. &#0160;</p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e200d8341bf69853efGlobal Guerrillashttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e00d83451576d69e201bb096ec2c4970d John Robb posted something http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2017-01-19T22:21:36Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e201bb096ec2c3970dhttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/comment2017-01-19T22:21:36Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451576d69e2John Robbhttp://profile.typepad.com/johnrobbtag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e200d8341bf69853efGlobal Guerrillashttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e00d83451576d69e201b8d255ce8a970c John Robb posted something http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2017-01-19T22:20:58Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e201b8d255ce89970chttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/comment2017-01-19T22:20:57Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451576d69e2John Robbhttp://profile.typepad.com/johnrobbtag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e200d8341bf69853efGlobal Guerrillashttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e00d83451576d69e201b7c8cb8233970b John Robb posted an entry http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2017-01-19T17:14:42Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e201b7c8cb8231970bWill the World be Safer or More Dangerous Under a Trump Presidency?http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2017-01-19T17:14:41Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451576d69e2John Robbhttp://profile.typepad.com/johnrobb<p>With Trump&#39;s inauguration tomorrow, I thought this thinking might be useful.</p> <p>____</p> <p>I was on a panel&#0160;at the always insightful <a href="https://fhl.global/event/suits-and-spooks-dc-2017/">Suits and Spooks conference</a> in Washington DC last week (it&#39;s an eclectic mix of IC pros and cybersecurity execs from around the world). It was lots of fun. &#0160;The topic of discussion on my panel was the title of this post: &#0160;will the world be safer or more dangerous under a Trump presidency?</p> <p>One of my answers was a simple, synthetic (as opposed to analytic) framework for understanding Trump&#39;s foreign policy: &#0160;</p> <ul> <li>Since WW2, US foreign policy has been completely dominated by national security policy. &#0160;In fact, it&#39;s hard to imagine a US policy that doesn&#39;t view the world through a militaristic, cold war lens. &#0160;This means&#0160;that ALL other aspects of foreign policy are conducted in support of (slaved to) national security policy. &#0160;In particular, US trade policy is configured to promote the economic growth of allied nations (originally to fight the cold war) even if this trade relationships damages US economic performance. &#0160;<br /><br /></li> <li>Trump inverts that policy relationship. &#0160;In Trump&#39;s post cold war world, US foreign policy will be dominated by trade policy. &#0160;Even national security policy will be subservient to trade policy. &#0160;If trade policy is dominant, we&#39;ll see China, Mexico and the EU (Germany) become competitors. &#0160;Russia, in contrast will become an ally since it doesn&#39;t pose a trade threat. &#0160;<br /><br /></li> <li>National security under this regime will be used to reinforce and grow positive trade relationships. &#0160;For example, military tension with China creates the opportunity for sanctions that simulate the function of tariffs (allowing the US to circumvent trade organizations and domestic resistance to tariffs). &#0160; In a national security policy slaved to trade, any and all security guarantees extended to other nations will require a positive trade arrangement with the US. &#0160;The US simply won&#39;t protect or extent security guarantees to any nation that has a non-beneficial economic relationship with the US (i.e. runs a trade deficit). &#0160;</li> </ul> <p>This may or may not be useful to you. &#0160;</p> <p>I find it useful since it has proven to be fairly good at predicting where Trump and his bros are careening towards&#0160;next. &#0160;</p> <p>Sincerely,</p> <p>John Robb</p> <p>PS: &#0160;Synthesis works better than analysis in complex, rapidly changing environments like this.&#0160;</p> <p>PPS: &#0160;This trade centric approach suggests growth in naval spending.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>With Trump&#39;s inauguration tomorrow, I thought this thinking might be useful.</p> <p>____</p> <p>I was on a panel&#0160;at the always insightful <a href="https://fhl.global/event/suits-and-spooks-dc-2017/">Suits and Spooks conference</a> in Washington DC last week (it&#39;s an eclectic mix of IC pros and cybersecurity execs from around the world). It was lots of fun. &#0160;The topic of discussion on my panel was the title of this post: &#0160;will the world be safer or more dangerous under a Trump presidency?</p> <p>One of my answers was a simple, synthetic (as opposed to analytic) framework for understanding Trump&#39;s foreign policy: &#0160;</p> <ul> <li>Since WW2, US foreign policy has been completely dominated by national security policy. &#0160;In fact, it&#39;s hard to imagine a US policy that doesn&#39;t view the world through a militaristic, cold war lens. &#0160;This means&#0160;that ALL other aspects of foreign policy are conducted in support of (slaved to) national security policy. &#0160;In particular, US trade policy is configured to promote the economic growth of allied nations (originally to fight the cold war) even if this trade relationships damages US economic performance. &#0160;<br /><br /></li> <li>Trump inverts that policy relationship. &#0160;In Trump&#39;s post cold war world, US foreign policy will be dominated by trade policy. &#0160;Even national security policy will be subservient to trade policy. &#0160;If trade policy is dominant, we&#39;ll see China, Mexico and the EU (Germany) become competitors. &#0160;Russia, in contrast will become an ally since it doesn&#39;t pose a trade threat. &#0160;<br /><br /></li> <li>National security under this regime will be used to reinforce and grow positive trade relationships. &#0160;For example, military tension with China creates the opportunity for sanctions that simulate the function of tariffs (allowing the US to circumvent trade organizations and domestic resistance to tariffs). &#0160; In a national security policy slaved to trade, any and all security guarantees extended to other nations will require a positive trade arrangement with the US. &#0160;The US simply won&#39;t protect or extent security guarantees to any nation that has a non-beneficial economic relationship with the US (i.e. runs a trade deficit). &#0160;</li> </ul> <p>This may or may not be useful to you. &#0160;</p> <p>I find it useful since it has proven to be fairly good at predicting where Trump and his bros are careening towards&#0160;next. &#0160;</p> <p>Sincerely,</p> <p>John Robb</p> <p>PS: &#0160;Synthesis works better than analysis in complex, rapidly changing environments like this.&#0160;</p> <p>PPS: &#0160;This trade centric approach suggests growth in naval spending.</p> <p>&#0160;</p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e200d8341bf69853efGlobal Guerrillashttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e00d83451576d69e201b8d2553ee1970c John Robb posted an entry http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2017-01-18T19:31:43Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e201b8d25533e6970cBotting Politicshttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2017-01-18T19:31:42Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451576d69e2John Robbhttp://profile.typepad.com/johnrobb<p>During the 2012 US Presidential election, the Romney campaign was <a href="http://barracudalabs.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/InfoGraphic_Twitter.jpg">accused of buying fake Twitter followers</a>&#0160;from a bot network after he gained a whopping ~150,000 new followers in one day. &#0160;Romney&#39;s following jumped 17% in one day, providing him with a significant bump in the general perception of his&#0160;grassroots popularity and support for a&#0160;paltry ~$2,700 ($18 per thousand followers).&#0160;</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201bb096e2bd8970d-pi" style="float: right;"><img alt="Romney" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201bb096e2bd8970d img-responsive" src="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201bb096e2bd8970d-500wi" style="margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px;" title="Romney" /></a>Despite the accusation, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing">astroturfing</a>&#0160;effort worked. &#0160;Few&#0160;saw, read, or cared the report that claimed these followers were bots and not people. &#0160;Since 2012, there&#39;s been a significant increase in the use of political bots in nearly every country in the world, from Afghanistan to Venezuela. &#0160;Most of these early efforts, usually done in support of the government or establishment, fall into the following categories:</p> <ul> <li>Support padding (like Romney)</li> <li>Disseminating or amplifying propaganda (Saudi Arabia does lots of this)</li> <li>Demobilizing or trashing protest movements &#0160;(flooding hashtags for example)</li> </ul> <p><strong>Swarmed Mass</strong>&#0160;</p> <p>Most of these early political bots are used in&#0160;large swarms. &#0160;Swarms that allow them to act as a single unit to&#0160;overwhelm the opponent with <em>mass</em>. &#0160;In some cases, the swarm is&#0160;used to repeat a message again and again to increase its influence (retweeting, reposting, etc. <em>en masse</em>). &#0160;In others, it&#39;s used to flood an opponent with a large volume of responses refuting their claims. &#0160;</p> <p>To really get a sense of this, let&#39;s look at a single Russian swarm (out of many) that was used to pump kompromat and demobilize the opposition inside Russia. &#0160;Botnet swarms like this flood&#0160;any negative post, story, or tweet on a particular topic with pushback and amplify the dissemination of kompromat across social networks. &#0160;</p> <p>After the shooting of&#0160;Boris Nemtsov in 2015, this botnet sprang into action claiming that the Ukrainians shot him:</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201bb096e38b2970d-pi" style="display: inline;"><img alt="Botnet swarming effect" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201bb096e38b2970d img-responsive" src="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201bb096e38b2970d-500wi" title="Botnet swarming effect" /></a></p> <p>By using the breadcrumb trail of identical posts, <a href="https://globalvoices.org/2015/04/02/analyzing-kremlin-twitter-bots/">Lawrence Alexander</a>&#0160;used social networking analysis tools to map out the swarm. &#0160;The result was a tightly interconnected network of 2,900 bots acting in concert to demobilize opposition and promote kompromat.</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b7c8cb0fb8970b-pi" style="display: inline;"><img alt="Nemtsov-Tweets-Bot-Network" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b7c8cb0fb8970b img-responsive" src="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b7c8cb0fb8970b-320wi" title="Nemtsov-Tweets-Bot-Network" /></a>&#0160;</p> <p>Big, crude swarms like this are already losing effectiveness as the social networking companies get smarter about detecting and banning them. &#0160;Naturally, this has created an arms race between bot makers and the social networking companies, but with&#0160;a twist. &#0160;</p> <p>The twist is that most governments aren&#39;t on the side of the social networking companies. &#0160;Most are working on bot networks that circumvent controls in order to influence and control political opinion just like everyone else.</p> <p>Sincerely,</p> <p>John Robb</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>PS&gt; Bots come in two flavors: &#0160;</p> <ol> <li>software or</li> <li>a combination of software and hardware (robots). &#0160;</li> </ol> <p>While hardware based bots like drones have <a href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2016/02/turning-drones-into-weapons.html">some scary/amazing</a> (yet largely unexplored) tactical utility, most of the real action is in software bots or more specifically, social bots. &#0160;Social bots can be run from a single computer using multiple social networking accounts. &#0160;Others are operate as a network, using PCs compromised by malware. &#0160;In general, social bots can do the following: &#0160;</p> <ul> <li>automate and amplify interaction with social networks. &#0160;</li> <li>can converse with people (chatbots, customer service bots, etc.) -- some of these are getting amazing.</li> <li>actively and remorselessly troll, harass, and confuse opponents.</li> </ul> <p>Obviously, all of these attributes make social bots extremely useful politically. &#0160;</p> <p>During the 2012 US Presidential election, the Romney campaign was <a href="http://barracudalabs.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/InfoGraphic_Twitter.jpg">accused of buying fake Twitter followers</a>&#0160;from a bot network after he gained a whopping ~150,000 new followers in one day. &#0160;Romney&#39;s following jumped 17% in one day, providing him with a significant bump in the general perception of his&#0160;grassroots popularity and support for a&#0160;paltry ~$2,700 ($18 per thousand followers).&#0160;</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201bb096e2bd8970d-pi" style="float: right;"><img alt="Romney" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201bb096e2bd8970d img-responsive" src="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201bb096e2bd8970d-500wi" style="margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px;" title="Romney" /></a>Despite the accusation, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing">astroturfing</a>&#0160;effort worked. &#0160;Few&#0160;saw, read, or cared the report that claimed these followers were bots and not people. &#0160;Since 2012, there&#39;s been a significant increase in the use of political bots in nearly every country in the world, from Afghanistan to Venezuela. &#0160;Most of these early efforts, usually done in support of the government or establishment, fall into the following categories:</p> <ul> <li>Support padding (like Romney)</li> <li>Disseminating or amplifying propaganda (Saudi Arabia does lots of this)</li> <li>Demobilizing or trashing protest movements &#0160;(flooding hashtags for example)</li> </ul> <p><strong>Swarmed Mass</strong>&#0160;</p> <p>Most of these early political bots are used in&#0160;large swarms. &#0160;Swarms that allow them to act as a single unit to&#0160;overwhelm the opponent with <em>mass</em>. &#0160;In some cases, the swarm is&#0160;used to repeat a message again and again to increase its influence (retweeting, reposting, etc. <em>en masse</em>). &#0160;In others, it&#39;s used to flood an opponent with a large volume of responses refuting their claims. &#0160;</p> <p>To really get a sense of this, let&#39;s look at a single Russian swarm (out of many) that was used to pump kompromat and demobilize the opposition inside Russia. &#0160;Botnet swarms like this flood&#0160;any negative post, story, or tweet on a particular topic with pushback and amplify the dissemination of kompromat across social networks. &#0160;</p> <p>After the shooting of&#0160;Boris Nemtsov in 2015, this botnet sprang into action claiming that the Ukrainians shot him:</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201bb096e38b2970d-pi" style="display: inline;"><img alt="Botnet swarming effect" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201bb096e38b2970d img-responsive" src="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201bb096e38b2970d-500wi" title="Botnet swarming effect" /></a></p> <p>By using the breadcrumb trail of identical posts, <a href="https://globalvoices.org/2015/04/02/analyzing-kremlin-twitter-bots/">Lawrence Alexander</a>&#0160;used social networking analysis tools to map out the swarm. &#0160;The result was a tightly interconnected network of 2,900 bots acting in concert to demobilize opposition and promote kompromat.</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b7c8cb0fb8970b-pi" style="display: inline;"><img alt="Nemtsov-Tweets-Bot-Network" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b7c8cb0fb8970b img-responsive" src="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b7c8cb0fb8970b-320wi" title="Nemtsov-Tweets-Bot-Network" /></a>&#0160;</p> <p>Big, crude swarms like this are already losing effectiveness as the social networking companies get smarter about detecting and banning them. &#0160;Naturally, this has created an arms race between bot makers and the social networking companies, but with&#0160;a twist. &#0160;</p> <p>The twist is that most governments aren&#39;t on the side of the social networking companies. &#0160;Most are working on bot networks that circumvent controls in order to influence and control political opinion just like everyone else.</p> <p>Sincerely,</p> <p>John Robb</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>PS&gt; Bots come in two flavors: &#0160;</p> <ol> <li>software or</li> <li>a combination of software and hardware (robots). &#0160;</li> </ol> <p>While hardware based bots like drones have <a href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2016/02/turning-drones-into-weapons.html">some scary/amazing</a> (yet largely unexplored) tactical utility, most of the real action is in software bots or more specifically, social bots. &#0160;Social bots can be run from a single computer using multiple social networking accounts. &#0160;Others are operate as a network, using PCs compromised by malware. &#0160;In general, social bots can do the following: &#0160;</p> <ul> <li>automate and amplify interaction with social networks. &#0160;</li> <li>can converse with people (chatbots, customer service bots, etc.) -- some of these are getting amazing.</li> <li>actively and remorselessly troll, harass, and confuse opponents.</li> </ul> <p>Obviously, all of these attributes make social bots extremely useful politically. &#0160;</p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e200d8341bf69853efGlobal Guerrillashttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e00d83451576d69e201bb096db1b6970d John Robb posted an entry http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2017-01-17T20:27:29Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e201bb096d9613970dOur Addiction to Kompromathttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2017-01-17T20:27:29Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451576d69e2John Robbhttp://profile.typepad.com/johnrobb<p>Russia has two exports: energy and <em>kompromat</em>. Since energy isn&#39;t nearly as valuable as it was a decade ago, Putin has increased Russia&#39;s production of kompromat to compensate. So far, he&#39;s been fairly successful with this, but for an unexpected reason.</p> <p>What is kompromat? &#0160;Kompromat is any material that can be used to discredit, mislead, blackmail, coerce, or confuse a targeted person or entity. &#0160;This material spans the gamut, from a leaked sex video to a financial document proving corruption. In short, any material can be used as long as it is effective at damaging an opponent.</p> <p>However, kompromat proved to be something more than simply as a way to deal with the occasional political enemy. Over time, it became clear that in a <em>networked</em> Russia, a steady flow of targeted kompromat was actually capable of keeping the nation&#39;s entire social fabric in a perpetual state of turmoil. &#0160;A turmoil that enabled Putin to remain in power with much less authoritarian repression than would have been needed before Internet networking. &#0160;</p> <p>Of course, Russia isn&#39;t alone in its addiction to a steady diet of kompromat, deception, and fake narratives. &#0160;Endless socioeconomic stagnation has led the US and the EU to developed similar addictions. &#0160;Addictions that erupted in full force over the past year with an amazing ferocity.</p> <p>The intentional disruption of social networks is now part of the political mainstream in the US (and increasingly the EU), and it took only one election cycle for the entirety of the political spectrum to adopt it. &#0160;Now, salvos of intentional disruption are the most common form of political discourse in the increasingly fractured west.&#0160;</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201bb096daefd970d-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Kompromat" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201bb096daefd970d img-responsive" src="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201bb096daefd970d-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Kompromat" /></a>Every participant in our political system is doing it. &#0160;In fact, there is so much domestically produced and self inflicted social disruption going on now, by so many participants, Russia&#39;s attempts at US kompromat are below a rounding error in comparative effectiveness. &#0160;</p> <p>Given this backdrop of increasing disruption, I&#39;m continually surprised that establishment organizations and figures are actively engaged in it to damage Trump. &#0160;For example, the recent ongoing campaign by senior members of the intelligence community to use leaked kompromat to cast doubt on the Trump&#39;s legitimacy by tying him to Putin. &#0160; &#0160;</p> <p>Disruption like this does more harm than good to the establishment. &#0160;Trump is the incredible Hulk of disruption. &#0160;The more you throw at him, the stronger he gets. &#0160;In contrast, the establishment derives its power through the smooth functioning of the system and strong connections. &#0160;</p> <p>Anything that weakens, disrupts, negates, or damages the system makes it easier for Trump to operate and harder for the establishment to do the same. &#0160;&#0160;</p> <p>Sincerely,</p> <p>John Robb</p> <p>Russia has two exports: energy and <em>kompromat</em>. Since energy isn&#39;t nearly as valuable as it was a decade ago, Putin has increased Russia&#39;s production of kompromat to compensate. So far, he&#39;s been fairly successful with this, but for an unexpected reason.</p> <p>What is kompromat? &#0160;Kompromat is any material that can be used to discredit, mislead, blackmail, coerce, or confuse a targeted person or entity. &#0160;This material spans the gamut, from a leaked sex video to a financial document proving corruption. In short, any material can be used as long as it is effective at damaging an opponent.</p> <p>However, kompromat proved to be something more than simply as a way to deal with the occasional political enemy. Over time, it became clear that in a <em>networked</em> Russia, a steady flow of targeted kompromat was actually capable of keeping the nation&#39;s entire social fabric in a perpetual state of turmoil. &#0160;A turmoil that enabled Putin to remain in power with much less authoritarian repression than would have been needed before Internet networking. &#0160;</p> <p>Of course, Russia isn&#39;t alone in its addiction to a steady diet of kompromat, deception, and fake narratives. &#0160;Endless socioeconomic stagnation has led the US and the EU to developed similar addictions. &#0160;Addictions that erupted in full force over the past year with an amazing ferocity.</p> <p>The intentional disruption of social networks is now part of the political mainstream in the US (and increasingly the EU), and it took only one election cycle for the entirety of the political spectrum to adopt it. &#0160;Now, salvos of intentional disruption are the most common form of political discourse in the increasingly fractured west.&#0160;</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201bb096daefd970d-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Kompromat" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201bb096daefd970d img-responsive" src="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201bb096daefd970d-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Kompromat" /></a>Every participant in our political system is doing it. &#0160;In fact, there is so much domestically produced and self inflicted social disruption going on now, by so many participants, Russia&#39;s attempts at US kompromat are below a rounding error in comparative effectiveness. &#0160;</p> <p>Given this backdrop of increasing disruption, I&#39;m continually surprised that establishment organizations and figures are actively engaged in it to damage Trump. &#0160;For example, the recent ongoing campaign by senior members of the intelligence community to use leaked kompromat to cast doubt on the Trump&#39;s legitimacy by tying him to Putin. &#0160; &#0160;</p> <p>Disruption like this does more harm than good to the establishment. &#0160;Trump is the incredible Hulk of disruption. &#0160;The more you throw at him, the stronger he gets. &#0160;In contrast, the establishment derives its power through the smooth functioning of the system and strong connections. &#0160;</p> <p>Anything that weakens, disrupts, negates, or damages the system makes it easier for Trump to operate and harder for the establishment to do the same. &#0160;&#0160;</p> <p>Sincerely,</p> <p>John Robb</p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e200d8341bf69853efGlobal Guerrillashttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e00d83451576d69e201b7c8c9e735970b John Robb posted an entry http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2017-01-16T16:53:59Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e201b7c8c9d04e970bThe Race to Weaponize Empathyhttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2017-01-16T16:53:58Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451576d69e2John Robbhttp://profile.typepad.com/johnrobb<p>There&#39;s a war for the future being waged online. It&#39;s being fought across the world&#39;s online social networks, and the outcomes of these online battles increasingly dictate the outcome of what happens later in the real world.</p> <p>One of the most successful tactics used in this war is the manipulation of language in order to confuse, scare, nullify or outrage targeted audiences with the objective of making money, aggregating political power, and disrupting opponents.</p> <p>While this manipulation has ALWAYs been true of human conflict, it&#39;s being done on a scale and to a degree that we&#39;ve never seen before due social networking, globalization, and social/media fragmentation.</p> <p>A great example of tactical manipulation is called the the Russell Conjugation (or the &quot;emotive conjugation&quot; championed by the philosopher <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertrand_Russell">Bertrand Russell</a>&#0160;, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1401309291/ref=nosim/globalguerril-20">the pollster Frank Luntz</a> and recently Thiel Capital&#39;s <a href="https://www.edge.org/response-detail/27181">Eric Weinstein</a>). &#0160;&#0160;</p> <p>The Russell conjugation exploits the gap in the emotional content of a word or phrase and the factual content. &#0160;Here are a few of Russell&#39;s examples:</p> <p style="text-align: center;"><em>&quot;I am firm; you are obstinate; he is a pig-headed fool.&quot;</em></p> <p style="text-align: center;"><em>&quot;I am righteously indignant; you are annoyed; he is making a fuss over nothing.&quot;</em></p> <p>Notice how the factual content remains unchanged. In each case, the person referenced is factually described as &quot;a person who is reluctant to accept new information.&quot; However, the words used change the emotional content drastically, from a positive to neutral-negative to negative-opprobrium.</p> <p>The ability to change the emotional spin on a fact is critical. As all great marketing pros already know, the emotional content of a message is much more important than the factual content when it comes to selling anything. All brands are simply emotion (a commercial brand is monetized emotion).</p> <p>However, this gets more complicated when an emotional spin is applied to facts presented as news. &#0160;As Weinstein correctly points out, people don&#39;t just care about the factual content since they don&#39;t view a fact as a bit of disconnected information. &#0160;They see all facts within a social context and that context is identified by the emotional context attached to that fact.</p> <p>In fact, if historical behavior is a guide,&#0160;<em>people care more about the social consequences of the facts than the fact itself. </em></p> <p>We&#39;ve seen this before. &#0160;<em>Context seeking</em> is also the basis of consumerism as Thorstein Veblen pointed out in his classic book on modern economics <a href="https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0486280624/ref=nosim/globalguerril-20">The Theory of the Leisure Class</a>. &#0160; Simply, the entire modern economy is based on people buying products and services in an attempt to mimic the choices and habits of people they consider cooler, wealthier or more successful than they are. &#0160;</p> <p>This is also true with news in a fragmented society. &#0160;Most people go to news sources they trust to find out more than the facts. &#0160;They want to find out how they <em>should feel</em> about a fact (or whether they should reject that fact) from people they consider to be leaders of their social network. &#0160;</p> <p>This <em>context seeking</em> used to be limited to the news presented by reporters/editors of the big papers like the New York Times and the TV network news organizations like CBS. &#0160;That&#39;s not true anymore. &#0160;Control over the emotional content of news has fragmented due to the rise of social media and social networking. &#0160;People don&#39;t just look for the &quot;correct&quot; emotional spin on a fact from a big media company, they seek it from alt news orgs and personalities on social networks they identify with.</p> <p>This suggests that the current debate over &quot;fake news&quot; isn&#39;t due to the&#0160;use of fabricated information. &#0160;Instead, it&#39;s really a negative way of describing news that has an emotional context that is at odds/war with the emotions approved by the major media, academia, or government. &#0160;</p> <p>Sincerely,</p> <p>John Robb</p> <p>PS: &#0160;Here&#39;s a <a href="https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1401309291/ref=nosim/globalguerril-20">good book from Frank Luntz</a> on how this manipulation works in practice. &#0160; Example: &#0160;how the Estate Tax was redeemed by calling it the Death Tax and Illegal Immigrants were redeemed by calling them Undocumented Immigrants.</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1401309291/ref=nosim/globalguerril-20" style="display: inline;"><img alt="Luntz" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b8d253ff55970c img-responsive" src="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b8d253ff55970c-120wi" title="Luntz" /></a></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>There&#39;s a war for the future being waged online. It&#39;s being fought across the world&#39;s online social networks, and the outcomes of these online battles increasingly dictate the outcome of what happens later in the real world.</p> <p>One of the most successful tactics used in this war is the manipulation of language in order to confuse, scare, nullify or outrage targeted audiences with the objective of making money, aggregating political power, and disrupting opponents.</p> <p>While this manipulation has ALWAYs been true of human conflict, it&#39;s being done on a scale and to a degree that we&#39;ve never seen before due social networking, globalization, and social/media fragmentation.</p> <p>A great example of tactical manipulation is called the the Russell Conjugation (or the &quot;emotive conjugation&quot; championed by the philosopher <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertrand_Russell">Bertrand Russell</a>&#0160;, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1401309291/ref=nosim/globalguerril-20">the pollster Frank Luntz</a> and recently Thiel Capital&#39;s <a href="https://www.edge.org/response-detail/27181">Eric Weinstein</a>). &#0160;&#0160;</p> <p>The Russell conjugation exploits the gap in the emotional content of a word or phrase and the factual content. &#0160;Here are a few of Russell&#39;s examples:</p> <p style="text-align: center;"><em>&quot;I am firm; you are obstinate; he is a pig-headed fool.&quot;</em></p> <p style="text-align: center;"><em>&quot;I am righteously indignant; you are annoyed; he is making a fuss over nothing.&quot;</em></p> <p>Notice how the factual content remains unchanged. In each case, the person referenced is factually described as &quot;a person who is reluctant to accept new information.&quot; However, the words used change the emotional content drastically, from a positive to neutral-negative to negative-opprobrium.</p> <p>The ability to change the emotional spin on a fact is critical. As all great marketing pros already know, the emotional content of a message is much more important than the factual content when it comes to selling anything. All brands are simply emotion (a commercial brand is monetized emotion).</p> <p>However, this gets more complicated when an emotional spin is applied to facts presented as news. &#0160;As Weinstein correctly points out, people don&#39;t just care about the factual content since they don&#39;t view a fact as a bit of disconnected information. &#0160;They see all facts within a social context and that context is identified by the emotional context attached to that fact.</p> <p>In fact, if historical behavior is a guide,&#0160;<em>people care more about the social consequences of the facts than the fact itself. </em></p> <p>We&#39;ve seen this before. &#0160;<em>Context seeking</em> is also the basis of consumerism as Thorstein Veblen pointed out in his classic book on modern economics <a href="https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0486280624/ref=nosim/globalguerril-20">The Theory of the Leisure Class</a>. &#0160; Simply, the entire modern economy is based on people buying products and services in an attempt to mimic the choices and habits of people they consider cooler, wealthier or more successful than they are. &#0160;</p> <p>This is also true with news in a fragmented society. &#0160;Most people go to news sources they trust to find out more than the facts. &#0160;They want to find out how they <em>should feel</em> about a fact (or whether they should reject that fact) from people they consider to be leaders of their social network. &#0160;</p> <p>This <em>context seeking</em> used to be limited to the news presented by reporters/editors of the big papers like the New York Times and the TV network news organizations like CBS. &#0160;That&#39;s not true anymore. &#0160;Control over the emotional content of news has fragmented due to the rise of social media and social networking. &#0160;People don&#39;t just look for the &quot;correct&quot; emotional spin on a fact from a big media company, they seek it from alt news orgs and personalities on social networks they identify with.</p> <p>This suggests that the current debate over &quot;fake news&quot; isn&#39;t due to the&#0160;use of fabricated information. &#0160;Instead, it&#39;s really a negative way of describing news that has an emotional context that is at odds/war with the emotions approved by the major media, academia, or government. &#0160;</p> <p>Sincerely,</p> <p>John Robb</p> <p>PS: &#0160;Here&#39;s a <a href="https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1401309291/ref=nosim/globalguerril-20">good book from Frank Luntz</a> on how this manipulation works in practice. &#0160; Example: &#0160;how the Estate Tax was redeemed by calling it the Death Tax and Illegal Immigrants were redeemed by calling them Undocumented Immigrants.</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1401309291/ref=nosim/globalguerril-20" style="display: inline;"><img alt="Luntz" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b8d253ff55970c img-responsive" src="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b8d253ff55970c-120wi" title="Luntz" /></a></p> <p>&#0160;</p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e200d8341bf69853efGlobal Guerrillashttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e00d83451576d69e201b8d2475f0c970c John Robb posted something http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2016-12-16T18:43:13Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e201b8d2475f0b970chttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/comment2016-12-16T18:43:12Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451576d69e2John Robbhttp://profile.typepad.com/johnrobbtag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e200d8341bf69853efGlobal Guerrillashttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e00d83451576d69e201bb09608ed5970d John Robb posted something http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2016-12-16T18:42:47Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e201bb09608ed4970dhttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/comment2016-12-16T18:42:47Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451576d69e2John Robbhttp://profile.typepad.com/johnrobbtag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e200d8341bf69853efGlobal Guerrillashttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e00d83451576d69e201bb096044e4970d John Robb posted an entry http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2016-12-16T00:08:01Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e201bb096044e2970dThe US is Officially a Banana Republic: the CIA is trying to topple the Governmenthttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2016-12-16T00:08:01Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451576d69e2John Robbhttp://profile.typepad.com/johnrobb<p>There&#39;s an <a href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2016/12/warning-the-electoral-coup-.html">electoral coup underway</a>.</p> <p>The number of potentially faithless Republican electors is now up to 50, more than enough to deny Trump the votes he needs for an EC win and/or give Hillary Clinton the votes she needs to win.</p> <p>The stealth effort, led by liberals who believe Trump is a danger to the US, has been underway since the election. &#0160;</p> <p>That effort only gained traction with Republican electors when the CIA leaked that Russia had intervened in the US election <em>to help Trump win</em>. &#0160;</p> <p>Of course, the timing of the CIA&#39;s leak wasn&#39;t random. &#0160;</p> <p>It was something much more sinister. &#0160;It was an opening salvo by the CIA to actively influence the Electoral College and stop Donald Trump from becoming President. &#0160;</p> <p>In other words, the CIA is trying to topple&#0160;Trump.</p> <p>Why? &#0160;Self preservation.&#0160;</p> <p>The real reason is that Trump was working with Peter Thiel to corporatize the intelligence gathering of the United States around companies, like Palantir, that can adopt and employ technology much faster and with more efficacy. &#0160;In other words, Trump is planning to turn the CIA and the NSA into peripheral collection systems. &#0160;</p> <p>That was unacceptable to the CIA, an agency with a strong sense of self-importance. &#0160;</p> <p>They acted again today when the head of the CIA <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2016/12/14/intelligence-officials-refuse-brief-house-panel-russian-hacking/95453412/">refused to brief the&#0160;House Intelligence Committee</a>&#0160;on the their claims&#0160;because the chairman of the committee, Devin Nunes, was part of Trump&#39;s transition team. &#0160; &#0160;</p> <p>Instead, the CIA&#0160;<a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/u-s-officials-putin-personally-involved-u-s-election-hack-n696146">leaked more information this afternoon</a>&#0160;to influence electors:</p> <p>&quot;<strong>new intelligence shows that Putin personally directed how hacked material.. was leaked</strong>&quot;</p> <p>However, due to tight legal restrictions on the use of the information the CIA gathers and who it gather it on (i.e. US citizens), I anticipated that any new leak would be from allied sources not covered by these restrictions. &#0160;</p> <p>That proved to be correct:</p> <div class="text_exposed_show"> <p>&quot;<strong>The intelligence came from diplomatic sources and spies working for U.S. allies.</strong>&quot;</p> <p>What&#39;s next?</p> <p>We can expect to see more leaks this weekend, before the EC votes on Monday. &#0160;</p> <p>What kind of info? &#0160;A shred of evidence&#0160;(a taped conversation would be best), gathered by US allies and not the CIA, that shows that Trump knew about the hack or came to an agreement with Putin. &#0160;</p> <p>At that point, the EC will definitely flip and Trump will be denied an electoral college win on Monday.</p> <p>After that we head to the courts and start down the road to street level violence. &#0160;</p> <p>To avoid the chaos of merely unseating Trump, the electors may award Hillary Clinton the win since she is best able to gather the establishment around her to fight off Trump&#39;s bid.</p> <p>Regardless, we have moved another step towards what looks more and more like another US civil war. &#0160;</p> <p>It&#39;s not a long trip, now that we are a Banana Republic. &#0160;</p> <p>Sincerely,</p> <p>John Robb</p> </div> <p>There&#39;s an <a href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2016/12/warning-the-electoral-coup-.html">electoral coup underway</a>.</p> <p>The number of potentially faithless Republican electors is now up to 50, more than enough to deny Trump the votes he needs for an EC win and/or give Hillary Clinton the votes she needs to win.</p> <p>The stealth effort, led by liberals who believe Trump is a danger to the US, has been underway since the election. &#0160;</p> <p>That effort only gained traction with Republican electors when the CIA leaked that Russia had intervened in the US election <em>to help Trump win</em>. &#0160;</p> <p>Of course, the timing of the CIA&#39;s leak wasn&#39;t random. &#0160;</p> <p>It was something much more sinister. &#0160;It was an opening salvo by the CIA to actively influence the Electoral College and stop Donald Trump from becoming President. &#0160;</p> <p>In other words, the CIA is trying to topple&#0160;Trump.</p> <p>Why? &#0160;Self preservation.&#0160;</p> <p>The real reason is that Trump was working with Peter Thiel to corporatize the intelligence gathering of the United States around companies, like Palantir, that can adopt and employ technology much faster and with more efficacy. &#0160;In other words, Trump is planning to turn the CIA and the NSA into peripheral collection systems. &#0160;</p> <p>That was unacceptable to the CIA, an agency with a strong sense of self-importance. &#0160;</p> <p>They acted again today when the head of the CIA <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2016/12/14/intelligence-officials-refuse-brief-house-panel-russian-hacking/95453412/">refused to brief the&#0160;House Intelligence Committee</a>&#0160;on the their claims&#0160;because the chairman of the committee, Devin Nunes, was part of Trump&#39;s transition team. &#0160; &#0160;</p> <p>Instead, the CIA&#0160;<a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/u-s-officials-putin-personally-involved-u-s-election-hack-n696146">leaked more information this afternoon</a>&#0160;to influence electors:</p> <p>&quot;<strong>new intelligence shows that Putin personally directed how hacked material.. was leaked</strong>&quot;</p> <p>However, due to tight legal restrictions on the use of the information the CIA gathers and who it gather it on (i.e. US citizens), I anticipated that any new leak would be from allied sources not covered by these restrictions. &#0160;</p> <p>That proved to be correct:</p> <div class="text_exposed_show"> <p>&quot;<strong>The intelligence came from diplomatic sources and spies working for U.S. allies.</strong>&quot;</p> <p>What&#39;s next?</p> <p>We can expect to see more leaks this weekend, before the EC votes on Monday. &#0160;</p> <p>What kind of info? &#0160;A shred of evidence&#0160;(a taped conversation would be best), gathered by US allies and not the CIA, that shows that Trump knew about the hack or came to an agreement with Putin. &#0160;</p> <p>At that point, the EC will definitely flip and Trump will be denied an electoral college win on Monday.</p> <p>After that we head to the courts and start down the road to street level violence. &#0160;</p> <p>To avoid the chaos of merely unseating Trump, the electors may award Hillary Clinton the win since she is best able to gather the establishment around her to fight off Trump&#39;s bid.</p> <p>Regardless, we have moved another step towards what looks more and more like another US civil war. &#0160;</p> <p>It&#39;s not a long trip, now that we are a Banana Republic. &#0160;</p> <p>Sincerely,</p> <p>John Robb</p> </div>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e200d8341bf69853efGlobal Guerrillashttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e00d83451576d69e201bb095ed6ba970d John Robb posted an entry http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2016-12-12T19:22:40Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e201bb095ed6b8970dWARNING: An Electoral Coup is Underwayhttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2016-12-12T19:22:40Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451576d69e2John Robbhttp://profile.typepad.com/johnrobb<p>On December 19, 2016 the electoral college will vote. &#0160;</p> <p>Based on the vote, Trump should receive 306 votes and Clinton will have 232. &#0160;</p> <p>However, it is possible for many electors to change their vote. &#0160;They aren&#39;t bound by it. &#0160;</p> <p>There&#39;s currently a very well funded attempt to influence electors to flip their votes on December 19th to change the outcome of the election.</p> <p>Despite expectations that it is far fetched, it has a high chance of success. &#0160;As of today, there are enough electoral votes in play to flip the outcome. &#0160;</p> <p>The three outcomes in discussion right now:&#0160;</p> <ol> <li>Trump falls short of the electoral count (270) to become President and the election is sent to Congress for a decision.</li> <li>Clinton gets more than 270 electoral votes and becomes the President.</li> <li>A dark horse candidate (Kaisitch, etc.) would get the votes to become President.</li> </ol> <p>In my view: &#0160;all of these outcomes would end in a disaster.</p> <p>Why? &#0160;Most of the country sees this election as already decided. &#0160;</p> <p>The voters have spoken. &#0160;Any change the outcome of the election at this juncture would be widely seen as illegitimate.</p> <p>What would happen next would be worse.</p> <p>Trump would claim this is a coup d&#39;etat and gather widespread support. &#0160;Most of the states (which are Republican dominated) would support him on this.</p> <p>Until January 20th, chaos would ensue. &#0160;Violent conflict would be widespread as groups (pro or against Trump) form and take action.</p> <p>I haven&#39;t fully gamed this out but I suspect Trump would be able to gather enough support to become President regardless of the electoral college result (anything less would result in a messy street level civil war). &#0160;Fear of continued chaos would force this.</p> <p>The moment he is sworn in, he would invoke a state of emergency and quickly move to arrest anyone connected with the plot to nullify the election and anyone calling for violence.</p> <p>By the end of March, thousands of people could even find themselves in Guantanamo. &#0160;-labelled as terrorists/traitors they would be denied access to legal representation or any outside contact until the emergency is over. &#0160;</p> <p>Trump, strengthened by emergency powers and without an effective opposition (fear of being put on a list), would now be able to rule as a semi-dictator. &#0160;&#0160;</p> <p>On December 19, 2016 the electoral college will vote. &#0160;</p> <p>Based on the vote, Trump should receive 306 votes and Clinton will have 232. &#0160;</p> <p>However, it is possible for many electors to change their vote. &#0160;They aren&#39;t bound by it. &#0160;</p> <p>There&#39;s currently a very well funded attempt to influence electors to flip their votes on December 19th to change the outcome of the election.</p> <p>Despite expectations that it is far fetched, it has a high chance of success. &#0160;As of today, there are enough electoral votes in play to flip the outcome. &#0160;</p> <p>The three outcomes in discussion right now:&#0160;</p> <ol> <li>Trump falls short of the electoral count (270) to become President and the election is sent to Congress for a decision.</li> <li>Clinton gets more than 270 electoral votes and becomes the President.</li> <li>A dark horse candidate (Kaisitch, etc.) would get the votes to become President.</li> </ol> <p>In my view: &#0160;all of these outcomes would end in a disaster.</p> <p>Why? &#0160;Most of the country sees this election as already decided. &#0160;</p> <p>The voters have spoken. &#0160;Any change the outcome of the election at this juncture would be widely seen as illegitimate.</p> <p>What would happen next would be worse.</p> <p>Trump would claim this is a coup d&#39;etat and gather widespread support. &#0160;Most of the states (which are Republican dominated) would support him on this.</p> <p>Until January 20th, chaos would ensue. &#0160;Violent conflict would be widespread as groups (pro or against Trump) form and take action.</p> <p>I haven&#39;t fully gamed this out but I suspect Trump would be able to gather enough support to become President regardless of the electoral college result (anything less would result in a messy street level civil war). &#0160;Fear of continued chaos would force this.</p> <p>The moment he is sworn in, he would invoke a state of emergency and quickly move to arrest anyone connected with the plot to nullify the election and anyone calling for violence.</p> <p>By the end of March, thousands of people could even find themselves in Guantanamo. &#0160;-labelled as terrorists/traitors they would be denied access to legal representation or any outside contact until the emergency is over. &#0160;</p> <p>Trump, strengthened by emergency powers and without an effective opposition (fear of being put on a list), would now be able to rule as a semi-dictator. &#0160;&#0160;</p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e200d8341bf69853efGlobal Guerrillashttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e00d83451576d69e201b8d2389866970c John Robb posted an entry http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2016-11-11T20:51:31Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e201b8d2389863970cTrump's Insurgency creates our Tahrir Square Momenthttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2016-11-11T20:51:31Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451576d69e2John Robbhttp://profile.typepad.com/johnrobb<p>This year, an <a href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2016/02/trumps-insurgency-explained.html">open source insurgency formed in the US</a> and it took control of the White House. &#0160;I didn&#39;t write much about it this fall because it hit too close to home. &#0160;I knew what would happen. &#0160;</p> <p>What is an open source insurgency? &#0160;An open source insurgency is how a <em>very</em> large and <em>very</em> diverse group of people empowered by modern technology and without any formal organization, can defeat a very powerful opponent.</p> <p>I first started writing about open source insurgencies during the war in Iraq over a decade ago. &#0160;During that war, over 100 insurgent groups with different motivations for fighting (tribal interests, pro-Baathist, pro-nationalist, pro-Saddam, and lots of jihadi flavors) used the dynamics of open source warfare to fight&#0160;a&#0160;global superpower to a standstill. &#0160;We saw it again a few years later in the political world, when during&#0160;<a href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2011/01/egypt-how-to-lead-and-open-source-protest.html">the Arab Spring</a>&#0160;an open source fueled protest toppled governments in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Syria. &#0160;</p> <p>Open source insurgencies and protests can arise spontaneously and they are very hard to stop once they get going&#0160;since they are impervious to most forms of repressive counter-attack and political subversion. &#0160;For example, the open source movement propelling Trump forward made him impervious to attacks on his character. &#0160;It also eliminated any need for &quot;ground game&quot; or standard political organization and obviated any need for information disclosure and detailed policy papers. &#0160;</p> <p>Of course, that doesn&#39;t mean you can&#39;t defeat an open source insurgency. &#0160;You can, but it requires a different approach. &#0160;For example, here&#39;s a simple idea for how to defeat Trump&#39;s insurgency back <em>in July</em>:</p> <p style="padding-left: 30px;">IF Trump is running an open source insurgency, you don&#39;t go after the man to defeat him. Attacking him directly won&#39;t work. He&#39;s impervious to attack. One re<span class="text_exposed_show">ason is that a good 60% of America has been lied to so much by the establishment, they don&#39;t believe anything they say anymore. &#0160;</span>The way you beat him is to cleave off part of his movement. In this case, given the dynamics of the movement and this election, the best group to bring back are working class families in the midwest swing states. &#0160;To bring them back you need to do something real. Not promises (seen as lies). You need to actually do it. In this case, the best approach is to put the President, the Congress, and most big US companies together in a room and over the course of two weeks and nail down a deal to bring back 1 million&#0160;real jobs to MI, OH, and PA. -- with real timelines for implementation, good incomes and real benefits. If they do that, this election is over.</p> <p>If you have been reading me for a decade (or more), you might notice that this thinking is similar to what I wrote as an <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/15/opinion/the-opensource-war.html">op-ed in the New York Times</a>&#0160;in 2005, as a way to win the war in Iraq. &#0160;</p> <p>Two years later, this approach became the strategy that let the US extricate itself from&#0160;Iraq. &#0160;Regardless, Trump is in the White House and the success of open source insurgency guarantees we will see more of them in the future... &#0160;</p> <p>Perhaps sooner rather than later. &#0160;</p> <p>My worry is that the next one we see won&#39;t operate within the confines of a political campaign. &#0160;This <a href="https://twitter.com/i/moments/796417517157830656">uptick in insults</a> directed at minorities blamed on Trump, may be the tinder for setting off this next insurgency. &#0160;Social media amplifies every incident, spreading the anger it evokes like contagion across the country. &#0160;Just watch.&#0160;&#0160;This suggests that the next open source protest we are likely to see will form to force Donald Trump from the Presidency before the next election -- <strong>a Tahrir square moment in cities all across the US</strong>. &#0160;A massive and diverse open source protest that has one simple goal: the immediate removal of Donald Trump from office. &#0160;</p> <p>Unfortunately, an open source insurgency that forces a sitting President from office without the benefit of an election could&#0160;result in the same outcome as Egypt (or worse Syria). &#0160;</p> <p>Sincerely,</p> <p>John Robb</p> <p>PS: &#0160;For more: <a href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2008/03/starting-an-ope.html">here&#39;s some more thinking on how to start one</a>. &#0160;<a href="http://spectrum.ieee.org/telecom/security/opensource-warfare">The IEEE Spectrum</a>&#0160;has a primer on open source warfare. &#0160;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0471780790/ref=nosim/globalguerril-20">My book</a>&#0160;is probably the definitive source for it.<br /><br /></p> <p>This year, an <a href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2016/02/trumps-insurgency-explained.html">open source insurgency formed in the US</a> and it took control of the White House. &#0160;I didn&#39;t write much about it this fall because it hit too close to home. &#0160;I knew what would happen. &#0160;</p> <p>What is an open source insurgency? &#0160;An open source insurgency is how a <em>very</em> large and <em>very</em> diverse group of people empowered by modern technology and without any formal organization, can defeat a very powerful opponent.</p> <p>I first started writing about open source insurgencies during the war in Iraq over a decade ago. &#0160;During that war, over 100 insurgent groups with different motivations for fighting (tribal interests, pro-Baathist, pro-nationalist, pro-Saddam, and lots of jihadi flavors) used the dynamics of open source warfare to fight&#0160;a&#0160;global superpower to a standstill. &#0160;We saw it again a few years later in the political world, when during&#0160;<a href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2011/01/egypt-how-to-lead-and-open-source-protest.html">the Arab Spring</a>&#0160;an open source fueled protest toppled governments in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Syria. &#0160;</p> <p>Open source insurgencies and protests can arise spontaneously and they are very hard to stop once they get going&#0160;since they are impervious to most forms of repressive counter-attack and political subversion. &#0160;For example, the open source movement propelling Trump forward made him impervious to attacks on his character. &#0160;It also eliminated any need for &quot;ground game&quot; or standard political organization and obviated any need for information disclosure and detailed policy papers. &#0160;</p> <p>Of course, that doesn&#39;t mean you can&#39;t defeat an open source insurgency. &#0160;You can, but it requires a different approach. &#0160;For example, here&#39;s a simple idea for how to defeat Trump&#39;s insurgency back <em>in July</em>:</p> <p style="padding-left: 30px;">IF Trump is running an open source insurgency, you don&#39;t go after the man to defeat him. Attacking him directly won&#39;t work. He&#39;s impervious to attack. One re<span class="text_exposed_show">ason is that a good 60% of America has been lied to so much by the establishment, they don&#39;t believe anything they say anymore. &#0160;</span>The way you beat him is to cleave off part of his movement. In this case, given the dynamics of the movement and this election, the best group to bring back are working class families in the midwest swing states. &#0160;To bring them back you need to do something real. Not promises (seen as lies). You need to actually do it. In this case, the best approach is to put the President, the Congress, and most big US companies together in a room and over the course of two weeks and nail down a deal to bring back 1 million&#0160;real jobs to MI, OH, and PA. -- with real timelines for implementation, good incomes and real benefits. If they do that, this election is over.</p> <p>If you have been reading me for a decade (or more), you might notice that this thinking is similar to what I wrote as an <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/15/opinion/the-opensource-war.html">op-ed in the New York Times</a>&#0160;in 2005, as a way to win the war in Iraq. &#0160;</p> <p>Two years later, this approach became the strategy that let the US extricate itself from&#0160;Iraq. &#0160;Regardless, Trump is in the White House and the success of open source insurgency guarantees we will see more of them in the future... &#0160;</p> <p>Perhaps sooner rather than later. &#0160;</p> <p>My worry is that the next one we see won&#39;t operate within the confines of a political campaign. &#0160;This <a href="https://twitter.com/i/moments/796417517157830656">uptick in insults</a> directed at minorities blamed on Trump, may be the tinder for setting off this next insurgency. &#0160;Social media amplifies every incident, spreading the anger it evokes like contagion across the country. &#0160;Just watch.&#0160;&#0160;This suggests that the next open source protest we are likely to see will form to force Donald Trump from the Presidency before the next election -- <strong>a Tahrir square moment in cities all across the US</strong>. &#0160;A massive and diverse open source protest that has one simple goal: the immediate removal of Donald Trump from office. &#0160;</p> <p>Unfortunately, an open source insurgency that forces a sitting President from office without the benefit of an election could&#0160;result in the same outcome as Egypt (or worse Syria). &#0160;</p> <p>Sincerely,</p> <p>John Robb</p> <p>PS: &#0160;For more: <a href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2008/03/starting-an-ope.html">here&#39;s some more thinking on how to start one</a>. &#0160;<a href="http://spectrum.ieee.org/telecom/security/opensource-warfare">The IEEE Spectrum</a>&#0160;has a primer on open source warfare. &#0160;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0471780790/ref=nosim/globalguerril-20">My book</a>&#0160;is probably the definitive source for it.<br /><br /></p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e200d8341bf69853efGlobal Guerrillashttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e00d83451576d69e201b7c88f676a970b John Robb posted an entry http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2016-09-04T21:50:42Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e201b7c88f6767970bThe Terrorism Tax hits Europehttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2016-09-04T21:50:42Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451576d69e2John Robbhttp://profile.typepad.com/johnrobb<p>This is big news. &#0160;This is the first large scale demonstration that the &quot;Terrorism Tax&quot; <a href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2004/12/state_failure_c.html">I speculated about back in 2004</a>, actually works. &#0160; &#0160;</p> <p>______________&#0160;</p> <p>Liz Alderman at the NYTimes reported that terrorism&#0160;<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/30/business/international/europe-economy-gdp-terrorism.html">is squashing Europe&#39;s first glimmer of recovery since the financial crash</a>. &#0160;EU economic growth has been halved since spring, with France now at zero. &#0160;Here are some details:</p> <ul> <li>Tourism is sinking. &#0160;For example: &#0160;&quot;In France, growth in nightly hotel room bookings after the Paris attacks&#0160;fell to single digits from 20 percent. After the Brussels bombings, bookings went negative, and after Nice, bookings fell by double digits.&quot;</li> <li>Daily security costs are spiking. &#0160;Here&#39;s an example from a single venue, &quot;the&#0160;Paris Plage, a makeshift beach erected along the Seine, a dozen armed police officers guarded an entry checkpoint on a recent day. Army troops marched past families playing in the sand and half-empty activity points along the river. The patrols, cost taxpayers about 1 million euros, or $1.1 million, a day.&quot;</li> <li>Broad spectrum economic damage. &#0160;For example: &#0160;retail sales are slumping due to low traffic in stores and large numbers of entertainment events are being cancelled. &#0160;</li> </ul> <p><strong>The Terrorism Tax</strong></p> <p>Although Europe has suffered terrorism before, this time it&#39;s different. &#0160;Instead of big and relatively infrequent terrorist&#0160;attacks, these new attacks are small, numerous and geographically dispersed. &#0160;This change is a big deal, because it makes it possible for terrorists to turn attacks into &quot;a tax&quot; that depresses economic activity by imposing new costs and changing economic behavior. &#0160;Here&#39;s some of the theory from <a href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2004/12/state_failure_c.html">my 2004 article</a> on it: &#0160;</p> <p><em>A terrorism tax is an accumulation of excess costs inflicted on a city&#39;s stakeholders by acts of terrorism.&#0160; These include direct costs inflicted on the city by terrorists (systems sabotage) and indirect costs due to the security/insurance/policy/etc. changes needed to protect against attacks.&#0160; A terrorism tax above a certain level will force the city to transition to a lower market equilibrium (aka shrink).&#0160; So, what is that level?&#0160; Here&#39;s what they concluded:</em></p> <ul> <li><em>Singular terrorist events (black swans), like 9/11, do not impact city viability.&#0160; The costs of a singular event dissipate quickly.&#0160; In contrast, frequent attacks (even small ones) on a specific city can create a terrorism tax of a level necessary to shift equilibriums.</em></li> <li><em>In the labor pooling model of city formation, a terrorism tax of 7% will cause a city to collapse to a lower equilibrium.&#0160; Labor pooling equilibrium reflects the benefits of aggregating workers in a single location.&#0160; Workers get higher wages and more choices.&#0160; Firms get stable wages (no one firm can deplete the market) and more candidates.</em></li> <li><em>In the core-periphery model of city formation, a terrorism tax of 6.3% will push a city to a lower equilibrium.&#0160; The core-periphery model is based on transportation costs.&#0160; Firms generate transportation savings by concentrating in a single location next to suppliers and customers.&#0160; Customers and workers glean the benefit of lower transportation costs by locating near jobs and goods.</em></li> </ul> <p>________</p> <p>The terrorism tax is even more effective when it is combined with systems disruption (the intentional disruption of infrastructure). &#0160;That combo puts in play hidden dynamics - both economic and societal - that can turn a functional society into a violent insurgency within months. &#0160;</p> <p>This is big news. &#0160;This is the first large scale demonstration that the &quot;Terrorism Tax&quot; <a href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2004/12/state_failure_c.html">I speculated about back in 2004</a>, actually works. &#0160; &#0160;</p> <p>______________&#0160;</p> <p>Liz Alderman at the NYTimes reported that terrorism&#0160;<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/30/business/international/europe-economy-gdp-terrorism.html">is squashing Europe&#39;s first glimmer of recovery since the financial crash</a>. &#0160;EU economic growth has been halved since spring, with France now at zero. &#0160;Here are some details:</p> <ul> <li>Tourism is sinking. &#0160;For example: &#0160;&quot;In France, growth in nightly hotel room bookings after the Paris attacks&#0160;fell to single digits from 20 percent. After the Brussels bombings, bookings went negative, and after Nice, bookings fell by double digits.&quot;</li> <li>Daily security costs are spiking. &#0160;Here&#39;s an example from a single venue, &quot;the&#0160;Paris Plage, a makeshift beach erected along the Seine, a dozen armed police officers guarded an entry checkpoint on a recent day. Army troops marched past families playing in the sand and half-empty activity points along the river. The patrols, cost taxpayers about 1 million euros, or $1.1 million, a day.&quot;</li> <li>Broad spectrum economic damage. &#0160;For example: &#0160;retail sales are slumping due to low traffic in stores and large numbers of entertainment events are being cancelled. &#0160;</li> </ul> <p><strong>The Terrorism Tax</strong></p> <p>Although Europe has suffered terrorism before, this time it&#39;s different. &#0160;Instead of big and relatively infrequent terrorist&#0160;attacks, these new attacks are small, numerous and geographically dispersed. &#0160;This change is a big deal, because it makes it possible for terrorists to turn attacks into &quot;a tax&quot; that depresses economic activity by imposing new costs and changing economic behavior. &#0160;Here&#39;s some of the theory from <a href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2004/12/state_failure_c.html">my 2004 article</a> on it: &#0160;</p> <p><em>A terrorism tax is an accumulation of excess costs inflicted on a city&#39;s stakeholders by acts of terrorism.&#0160; These include direct costs inflicted on the city by terrorists (systems sabotage) and indirect costs due to the security/insurance/policy/etc. changes needed to protect against attacks.&#0160; A terrorism tax above a certain level will force the city to transition to a lower market equilibrium (aka shrink).&#0160; So, what is that level?&#0160; Here&#39;s what they concluded:</em></p> <ul> <li><em>Singular terrorist events (black swans), like 9/11, do not impact city viability.&#0160; The costs of a singular event dissipate quickly.&#0160; In contrast, frequent attacks (even small ones) on a specific city can create a terrorism tax of a level necessary to shift equilibriums.</em></li> <li><em>In the labor pooling model of city formation, a terrorism tax of 7% will cause a city to collapse to a lower equilibrium.&#0160; Labor pooling equilibrium reflects the benefits of aggregating workers in a single location.&#0160; Workers get higher wages and more choices.&#0160; Firms get stable wages (no one firm can deplete the market) and more candidates.</em></li> <li><em>In the core-periphery model of city formation, a terrorism tax of 6.3% will push a city to a lower equilibrium.&#0160; The core-periphery model is based on transportation costs.&#0160; Firms generate transportation savings by concentrating in a single location next to suppliers and customers.&#0160; Customers and workers glean the benefit of lower transportation costs by locating near jobs and goods.</em></li> </ul> <p>________</p> <p>The terrorism tax is even more effective when it is combined with systems disruption (the intentional disruption of infrastructure). &#0160;That combo puts in play hidden dynamics - both economic and societal - that can turn a functional society into a violent insurgency within months. &#0160;</p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e200d8341bf69853efGlobal Guerrillashttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e00d83451576d69e201b8d217434e970c John Robb posted an entry http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2016-08-30T15:04:40Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e201b8d217434c970cThe FAA vs. the Futurehttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2016-08-30T15:04:40Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451576d69e2John Robbhttp://profile.typepad.com/johnrobb<p>The <a href="https://www.faa.gov/uas/media/Part_107_Summary.pdf">new FAA rules</a>&#0160;(part 107)&#0160;for the commercial use of drones are now in force.. &#0160;&#0160;Let me summarize them for you in a single picture:</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b8d21738e8970c-pi"><img alt="A.baa-attractive-car-pulled-by-a-d" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b8d21738e8970c img-responsive" src="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b8d21738e8970c-500wi" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="A.baa-attractive-car-pulled-by-a-d" /></a></p> <p>The FAA rules (needed)&#0160;are not only years late, they contain a major flaw.</p> <p>It&#39;s a&#0160;flaw so large, it&#39;s similar to regulating cars with the rules used for horse drawn carriages. &#0160; You can see this flaw in the rules they are proposing:&#0160;</p> <ul> <li>Visual line-of-sight (VLOS) only; the unmanned aircraft must remain within VLOS of the remote pilot in command and the person manipulating the flight controls of the small UAS.</li> <li>A person operating a small UAS must either hold a remote pilot airman certificate with a small UAS rating or be under the direct supervision of a person who does hold a remote pilot certificate (remote pilot in command).</li> <li>No person may act as a remote pilot in command or VO for more than one unmanned aircraft operation at one time.</li> </ul> <p>See the flaw yet?</p> <p>The flaw is that the FAA&#39;s commercial drones require a pilot at the controls. &#0160;A pilot! &#0160;&#0160;</p> <p>Really? &#0160;</p> <p>The fact is, as a professional pilot, I can tell you categorically that drones don&#39;t need a pilot. &#0160;Not inside the aircraft or on the ground with a controller. &#0160;They can fly on their own. &#0160;</p> <p>You can see this in how they developed. &#0160;Drones only became a disruptive technology the moment that low cost computer chips exceeded the intellectual capacity of insects in 2011. &#0160;They didn&#39;t become disruptive due improvements in the batteries, motors, and materials used to build them. &#0160;These new chips make drones smart enough to do everything insects (flies, bees, etc.) do. &#0160;That means they don&#39;t need pilots to:</p> <ul> <li>Stabilize themselves.</li> <li>Take-off, land, and navigate.</li> <li>Accomplish complex mission tasks.</li> </ul> <p>As you can see, drones only become truly disruptive when they don&#39;t have pilots at all. &#0160;Yet, the FAA is regulating them in a way that forces drones to have pilots.&#0160;</p> <p>Let me put this in terms of work. &#0160;Drones <em>without</em> pilots make the following things possible (none of which are possible with pilots at the controls):</p> <ul> <li>Tireless. &#0160;Accomplish tasks 24x7x365. &#0160;</li> <li>Scalable. &#0160;Billions of drones can be used at the same time.</li> <li>Costless. &#0160;The cost per minute for drone services would drop to almost nothing. &#0160;</li> </ul> <p>If these&#0160;capabilities are unleashed, it&#39;s possible to do for drones what the Web/Internet did for networking. &#0160;</p> <p>What is needed is a ruleset that makes&#0160;<a href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2013/01/dronenet-the-next-big-thing.html">Dronenet</a>&#0160;possible,&#0160;not a system designed for commercial dilettantes. &#0160;</p> <p>The <a href="https://www.faa.gov/uas/media/Part_107_Summary.pdf">new FAA rules</a>&#0160;(part 107)&#0160;for the commercial use of drones are now in force.. &#0160;&#0160;Let me summarize them for you in a single picture:</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b8d21738e8970c-pi"><img alt="A.baa-attractive-car-pulled-by-a-d" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b8d21738e8970c img-responsive" src="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b8d21738e8970c-500wi" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="A.baa-attractive-car-pulled-by-a-d" /></a></p> <p>The FAA rules (needed)&#0160;are not only years late, they contain a major flaw.</p> <p>It&#39;s a&#0160;flaw so large, it&#39;s similar to regulating cars with the rules used for horse drawn carriages. &#0160; You can see this flaw in the rules they are proposing:&#0160;</p> <ul> <li>Visual line-of-sight (VLOS) only; the unmanned aircraft must remain within VLOS of the remote pilot in command and the person manipulating the flight controls of the small UAS.</li> <li>A person operating a small UAS must either hold a remote pilot airman certificate with a small UAS rating or be under the direct supervision of a person who does hold a remote pilot certificate (remote pilot in command).</li> <li>No person may act as a remote pilot in command or VO for more than one unmanned aircraft operation at one time.</li> </ul> <p>See the flaw yet?</p> <p>The flaw is that the FAA&#39;s commercial drones require a pilot at the controls. &#0160;A pilot! &#0160;&#0160;</p> <p>Really? &#0160;</p> <p>The fact is, as a professional pilot, I can tell you categorically that drones don&#39;t need a pilot. &#0160;Not inside the aircraft or on the ground with a controller. &#0160;They can fly on their own. &#0160;</p> <p>You can see this in how they developed. &#0160;Drones only became a disruptive technology the moment that low cost computer chips exceeded the intellectual capacity of insects in 2011. &#0160;They didn&#39;t become disruptive due improvements in the batteries, motors, and materials used to build them. &#0160;These new chips make drones smart enough to do everything insects (flies, bees, etc.) do. &#0160;That means they don&#39;t need pilots to:</p> <ul> <li>Stabilize themselves.</li> <li>Take-off, land, and navigate.</li> <li>Accomplish complex mission tasks.</li> </ul> <p>As you can see, drones only become truly disruptive when they don&#39;t have pilots at all. &#0160;Yet, the FAA is regulating them in a way that forces drones to have pilots.&#0160;</p> <p>Let me put this in terms of work. &#0160;Drones <em>without</em> pilots make the following things possible (none of which are possible with pilots at the controls):</p> <ul> <li>Tireless. &#0160;Accomplish tasks 24x7x365. &#0160;</li> <li>Scalable. &#0160;Billions of drones can be used at the same time.</li> <li>Costless. &#0160;The cost per minute for drone services would drop to almost nothing. &#0160;</li> </ul> <p>If these&#0160;capabilities are unleashed, it&#39;s possible to do for drones what the Web/Internet did for networking. &#0160;</p> <p>What is needed is a ruleset that makes&#0160;<a href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2013/01/dronenet-the-next-big-thing.html">Dronenet</a>&#0160;possible,&#0160;not a system designed for commercial dilettantes. &#0160;</p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e200d8341bf69853efGlobal Guerrillashttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e00d83451576d69e201b7c88d4b78970b John Robb posted an entry http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2016-08-29T21:32:20Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e201b7c88d4b76970bHacking the US with only a Soundhttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2016-08-29T21:32:20Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451576d69e2John Robbhttp://profile.typepad.com/johnrobb<p>What happens when a terrorist network (ISIS) <a href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2016/07/violence-media.html">finds a way</a> to activate terrorists using social media (neatly piercing the security defenses that we pay hundreds of billions of $$ for every year) to randomly&#0160;attack civilians (<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/roanoke-stabbing-being-investigated-by-fbi/2016/08/23/aa77199a-68e3-11e6-ba32-5a4bf5aad4fa_story.html">like the &#0160;knife attack in Roanoke VA last week</a>)? &#0160;</p> <p>You get&#0160;a society at a tipping point. &#0160;A society at this tipping point is reactive and labile. It is&#0160;EASILY sent into a frenzied retreat. &#0160;</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b8d2170102970c-pi"><img alt="Shooter" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b8d2170102970c img-responsive" src="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b8d2170102970c-500wi" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Shooter" /></a></p> <p>How is this different?&#0160;</p> <p>Unlike the classic example of yelling &quot;fire&quot; in a crowded movie theater, this panic can be induced by anything that sounds/looks/feels like a threat rather than the claim of a specific threat (like &quot;fire&quot;). &#0160;Nearly anything can set them off.</p> <p>Here&#39;s&#0160;three examples of that over the last <em>two</em> weeks&#0160;(there have been many more):</p> <ul> <li><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/15/nyregion/reports-of-gunfire-at-kennedy-airport-prompt-evacuation.html">JFK Airport</a>. &#0160;Unfounded reports of gunfire&#0160;led to an evacuation of terminals. &#0160;Police march passengers out of the terminal with their hands up. &#0160;Police speculate that it was started by load fans of the Rio Olympics.</li> <li><a href="http://bearingarms.com/bob-o/2016/08/13/breaking-active-shooter-crabtree-valley-mall-raleigh-nc/">CrabTree Valley Mall</a> (NC): &#0160;Unfounded reports of an active shooter leads to a panicked evacuation of the mall.</li> <li><a href="https://www.rt.com/usa/357497-lax-shooting-police-evacuation/">LAX Airport</a>. &#0160;Unfounded reports of a shooter led to people storming the jetway doors and spilling out onto the tarmac, people barricading themselves into bathrooms in multiple terminals, and more.</li> </ul> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201bb0930b7ba970d-pi"><img alt="Shooter jfk 3" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201bb0930b7ba970d img-responsive" src="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201bb0930b7ba970d-500wi" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Shooter jfk 3" /></a></p> <p>This public reactiveness&#0160;may become the new normal both here and in Europe. &#0160;If so, we can expect people take advantage of it. &#0160;</p> <p>Here&#39;s how. &#0160;</p> <p>All it takes is a single audio clip. &#0160;Like <a href="http://www.soundboard.com/sb/AllahuAkbarSoundboard">this</a> or <a href="http://soundbible.com/987-AK47-Assault-Rifle.html">this</a>&#0160;either near a public space or done remotely on a timed playback device is all it would take to ignite the FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) that leads to a large scale evacuation. &#0160;In fact, people are so reactive now, I suspect it wouldn&#39;t even take a sound that is explicit, only something that sounds similar.</p> <p>Think about this for a moment. &#0160;The ability to shut down a public space for hours:</p> <ul> <li>anytime (just walk in and play the sounds),</li> <li>remotely (low cost playback device on timer/remote activation), or</li> <li>on a large scale (thousands of people playing the sounds on their smart phones in public spaces simultaneously)</li> </ul> <p>is a substantial capability. &#0160;</p> <p>How so? <a href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2016/03/how-the-us-ends-up-in-a-civil-war.html">Take this fall&#39;s election</a> for example. &#0160;&#0160;</p> <p>It&#0160;is a <em>far easier</em> to close a voting location with a sound than hack a voting machine.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>What happens when a terrorist network (ISIS) <a href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2016/07/violence-media.html">finds a way</a> to activate terrorists using social media (neatly piercing the security defenses that we pay hundreds of billions of $$ for every year) to randomly&#0160;attack civilians (<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/roanoke-stabbing-being-investigated-by-fbi/2016/08/23/aa77199a-68e3-11e6-ba32-5a4bf5aad4fa_story.html">like the &#0160;knife attack in Roanoke VA last week</a>)? &#0160;</p> <p>You get&#0160;a society at a tipping point. &#0160;A society at this tipping point is reactive and labile. It is&#0160;EASILY sent into a frenzied retreat. &#0160;</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b8d2170102970c-pi"><img alt="Shooter" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b8d2170102970c img-responsive" src="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b8d2170102970c-500wi" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Shooter" /></a></p> <p>How is this different?&#0160;</p> <p>Unlike the classic example of yelling &quot;fire&quot; in a crowded movie theater, this panic can be induced by anything that sounds/looks/feels like a threat rather than the claim of a specific threat (like &quot;fire&quot;). &#0160;Nearly anything can set them off.</p> <p>Here&#39;s&#0160;three examples of that over the last <em>two</em> weeks&#0160;(there have been many more):</p> <ul> <li><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/15/nyregion/reports-of-gunfire-at-kennedy-airport-prompt-evacuation.html">JFK Airport</a>. &#0160;Unfounded reports of gunfire&#0160;led to an evacuation of terminals. &#0160;Police march passengers out of the terminal with their hands up. &#0160;Police speculate that it was started by load fans of the Rio Olympics.</li> <li><a href="http://bearingarms.com/bob-o/2016/08/13/breaking-active-shooter-crabtree-valley-mall-raleigh-nc/">CrabTree Valley Mall</a> (NC): &#0160;Unfounded reports of an active shooter leads to a panicked evacuation of the mall.</li> <li><a href="https://www.rt.com/usa/357497-lax-shooting-police-evacuation/">LAX Airport</a>. &#0160;Unfounded reports of a shooter led to people storming the jetway doors and spilling out onto the tarmac, people barricading themselves into bathrooms in multiple terminals, and more.</li> </ul> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201bb0930b7ba970d-pi"><img alt="Shooter jfk 3" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201bb0930b7ba970d img-responsive" src="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201bb0930b7ba970d-500wi" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Shooter jfk 3" /></a></p> <p>This public reactiveness&#0160;may become the new normal both here and in Europe. &#0160;If so, we can expect people take advantage of it. &#0160;</p> <p>Here&#39;s how. &#0160;</p> <p>All it takes is a single audio clip. &#0160;Like <a href="http://www.soundboard.com/sb/AllahuAkbarSoundboard">this</a> or <a href="http://soundbible.com/987-AK47-Assault-Rifle.html">this</a>&#0160;either near a public space or done remotely on a timed playback device is all it would take to ignite the FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) that leads to a large scale evacuation. &#0160;In fact, people are so reactive now, I suspect it wouldn&#39;t even take a sound that is explicit, only something that sounds similar.</p> <p>Think about this for a moment. &#0160;The ability to shut down a public space for hours:</p> <ul> <li>anytime (just walk in and play the sounds),</li> <li>remotely (low cost playback device on timer/remote activation), or</li> <li>on a large scale (thousands of people playing the sounds on their smart phones in public spaces simultaneously)</li> </ul> <p>is a substantial capability. &#0160;</p> <p>How so? <a href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2016/03/how-the-us-ends-up-in-a-civil-war.html">Take this fall&#39;s election</a> for example. &#0160;&#0160;</p> <p>It&#0160;is a <em>far easier</em> to close a voting location with a sound than hack a voting machine.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e200d8341bf69853efGlobal Guerrillashttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e00d83451576d69e201b8d215eec1970c John Robb posted an entry http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2016-08-26T15:46:24Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e201b8d215eebf970cCognitive Dominance http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2016-08-26T15:46:24Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451576d69e2John Robbhttp://profile.typepad.com/johnrobb<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">I&#39;ll get some down and dirty insurgent thinking up tomorrow. &#0160;</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">In the meantime, here&#39;s some&#0160;of my thinking on a strategic concept that could direct the development of autonomous robotics. &#0160;It&#39;s called <em>cognitive dominance</em>. &#0160;</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Cognitive dominance is the ability to make more and better decisions than the competition through the use of autonomous robotics. &#0160;This scenario, written in pentagon speak, applies some of the ideas I <a href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2016/02/the-zero-day-war.html">outlined earlier</a>. &#0160;&#0160;</span></p> <p>_______</p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><br />The war started when a peer competitor’s African client state invaded a weaker neighbor. &#0160;The peer competitor had been investing heavily in this client state over the last decade in order to gain exclusive access to a massive tract of increasingly rare, arable land. &#0160;To expand this precious resource, the client state (with the peer competitor’s backing) invaded a neighboring country to seize its arable acreage. &#0160;This aggression created a massive humanitarian crisis, sending tens of millions of refugees north towards the safety of the European Union. &#0160;The global response to this aggression was immediate and clear, but the demands to withdraw went unheeded. &#0160;</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">To overcome this impasse, the US issued a stern call to the client state to withdraw and to back it up, US military forces were sent to to the region. &#0160;This move prompted the peer competitor to decry US intervention in the “internal affairs” of Africa and that US forces would not be permitted within 1,000 nautical miles of the affected region. &#0160;To back this declaration up, the peer activated a massive A2/AD defense system it had been building in the client state over the last decade. &#0160;&#0160;With this move, the situation became a direct threat to US and global security. &#0160;Simply, if this provocation was allowed to stand, Africa and much of the rest of the world would be quickly divided into areas of control, defined by the effective range of A2/AD systems. &#0160;To prevent this outcome, a combined US led Joint Task Force was assembled to remove the peer competitor’s A2/AD system from the region and force the client state to return to it’s pre-war borders. &#0160;</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">This was the first major war since rapid advances in RAS inspired a revolution in military affairs transformed the US military. &#0160;The fruits of this transformation were seen in the first days of the war when the Joint Force opened up its first front in the war with RAS platforms and weapons systems already inside inside the opponent’s territory and formations. &#0160;In fact, much of this mix of cyber and robotic weapon systems had already </span><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">penetrated</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;"> the opponent </span><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">years ago. &#0160;</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;">These cyber side weapons had been built to slowly traverse the Internet on their own looking for target systems to disable when hostilities began. &#0160;On the robotic side, there were long term underwater vehicles screwed in the sandy muck of the client state’s harbor, a critical pathway for the peer competitors long supply chain. &#0160;Other robotic weapons systems were entrenched in the landscape in and around the peer’s installations. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">These prepositioned systems had been gathering detailed information on the peer country’s order of battle in the client state for many years. &#0160;In fact, some of these prepositioned systems were cognitively adept enough to actively retrieve [and analyze on the spot] the detailed information most needed by the Joint Force Commander. &#0160;This information provided a critical part of the “big data” in the Joint Cloud that Joint Force autonomous systems used to construct detailed physical, organizational, and systemic models of the opponent. &#0160;These models made it possible for the Joint Task Force commander to run the millions of simulated engagements needed to develop successful methods of attack and uncover the nasty surprises that could put the mission in jeopardy. &#0160;</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Based on this earlier work, the first major assault of the war was designed to stress the peer’s A2/AD system in order to gather intelligence on its operation, deplete its resources, and [if possible] reinforce the Joint Force’s prepositioned forces with new capabilities. &#0160;The assault was composed of RAS swarms of smart air, land and sea platforms set to a high degree of variable autonomy. &#0160;Given the risk of the mission, the human teams teamed with the swarms were stationed beyond the edge of the battle area. &#0160;The RAS swarms were trained to deceive, jam, and confuse the active sensor network, on land and in space, the opposition’s defense systems relied upon for strike guidance. &#0160;This worked. &#0160;The defense system was lit up like a Christmas tree and fired multiple salvos of hypersonic missiles at the Joint Force assault. &#0160;However, when these missiles reentered, they were unable to find the ships and aircraft they were expected to destroy. &#0160;The second wave sent by the defense system was composed of thousands of low cost RAS platforms packed to the brim with lightning fast PGMs. &#0160;The RAS platforms, manufactured in large volume over the last two decades, were expected to close on targets and overwhelm them with superior mass. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">As these forces closed, it became clear that this wasn’t going to be a fair fight. &#0160;The Joint Force personnel at the edge of the effective battlespace were not surprised to see that the cloud-based training system they used to train their RAS swarms up until the last few days had successfully exploited the weaknesses and vulnerabilities of the peer’s A2/AD system. &#0160;These swarms were able to systematically confuse, jam, outmaneuver, evade, and destroy the much more numerous RAS platforms of the opponent due to the far superior situational awareness, adaptability, and training of the traditionally developed systems deployed against them. &#0160;The swarms that did make it through did run into a surprise when the anti-air mobile laser used RAS based cognitive capabilities to knock out a dozen Joint Force drones before it was taken out of action. &#0160;Fortunately, the peer’s employment of RAS platforms that were cognitively dangerous, was limited to this this mobile laser. &#0160;This allowed the surviving drones to successfully reinforce the prepositioned assets before departing for recovery. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">One the second day, the Joint Force Commander decided, based on the high degree of success so far, to accelerate the battle plan and takedown the entire A2/AD system without delay. The takedown assault began with an attack by hypersonic MIRVed missiles launched by F-35s in the north and converted Aegis cruisers at the edge of the peer’s defensive envelope. &#0160;These missiles released mesh networked MIRVs with the cognitive capability to rapidly evaluate their local situation and adopt the appropriate tactics during the handful of seconds available in the reentry phase. &#0160;To their credit, the MIRVs worked as expected, and they were able to take out the mobile RAS lasers that had been so problematic the day before. &#0160;&#0160;Simultaneous with this, the forward deployed RAS forces sprang into action. &#0160;Cyber weapons forced the systems they had penetrated into critical collapse and the RAS UUVs in client state’s harbor blew up two peer munitions transports, crippling resupply efforts. &#0160;In few short hours, the entire defense grid, with tens of thousands of PGMs still unused, was down and Air Force and Navy continuous monitoring by flights of man/machine teams went into action to ensure it stayed dark.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The moment the grid went down, the third and final phase of the operation was launched. &#0160;This phase leveraged the automation of the US military’s logistics system to rapidly stage a ground assault force to secure the area. &#0160;Largely automated, this system was able to move men and material at and construct forward bases at an unprecedented pace. &#0160;It was so fast, in fact, the Army and the Marines were ready to stage their assaults within a few weeks of the success over the defense grid. &#0160;The men on the assault teams were armed with RAS weapons and able to find, identify, track, and engage multiple threats simultaneously. &#0160;They were teamed with RAS attack dogs and RAS mules serving as the support base for the swarm of RAS drones constantly gathering information for the team. &#0160;</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The Army teams moving overland and Marine teams arriving by amphibious assault [in and around the harbor] traveled rapidly within self-driving RAS vehicles. &#0160;Since these vehicles, and the drones above them, were all using decentralized movement protocols, thousands of robotics vehicles were able to maintain high speed forward advance without congestion. &#0160;&#0160;Mesh networks connected these ground assault teams with the reinforced prepositioned forces, the combat overwatch above, and each other. &#0160;The ground assault’s RAS driven vehicles rapidly converged on the defended points identified by the prepositioned forces. &#0160;Despite some hard fought engagement and a few attempted ambushes, the ground assault was over quickly. &#0160;It was later determined that that due to the rapidity of the assaults, the peer competitor was completely unprepared for a ground assault. &#0160;</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Cognitive dominance achieved, the Joint Force Commander accepted the surrender of the enemy commander. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">I&#39;ll get some down and dirty insurgent thinking up tomorrow. &#0160;</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">In the meantime, here&#39;s some&#0160;of my thinking on a strategic concept that could direct the development of autonomous robotics. &#0160;It&#39;s called <em>cognitive dominance</em>. &#0160;</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Cognitive dominance is the ability to make more and better decisions than the competition through the use of autonomous robotics. &#0160;This scenario, written in pentagon speak, applies some of the ideas I <a href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2016/02/the-zero-day-war.html">outlined earlier</a>. &#0160;&#0160;</span></p> <p>_______</p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><br />The war started when a peer competitor’s African client state invaded a weaker neighbor. &#0160;The peer competitor had been investing heavily in this client state over the last decade in order to gain exclusive access to a massive tract of increasingly rare, arable land. &#0160;To expand this precious resource, the client state (with the peer competitor’s backing) invaded a neighboring country to seize its arable acreage. &#0160;This aggression created a massive humanitarian crisis, sending tens of millions of refugees north towards the safety of the European Union. &#0160;The global response to this aggression was immediate and clear, but the demands to withdraw went unheeded. &#0160;</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">To overcome this impasse, the US issued a stern call to the client state to withdraw and to back it up, US military forces were sent to to the region. &#0160;This move prompted the peer competitor to decry US intervention in the “internal affairs” of Africa and that US forces would not be permitted within 1,000 nautical miles of the affected region. &#0160;To back this declaration up, the peer activated a massive A2/AD defense system it had been building in the client state over the last decade. &#0160;&#0160;With this move, the situation became a direct threat to US and global security. &#0160;Simply, if this provocation was allowed to stand, Africa and much of the rest of the world would be quickly divided into areas of control, defined by the effective range of A2/AD systems. &#0160;To prevent this outcome, a combined US led Joint Task Force was assembled to remove the peer competitor’s A2/AD system from the region and force the client state to return to it’s pre-war borders. &#0160;</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">This was the first major war since rapid advances in RAS inspired a revolution in military affairs transformed the US military. &#0160;The fruits of this transformation were seen in the first days of the war when the Joint Force opened up its first front in the war with RAS platforms and weapons systems already inside inside the opponent’s territory and formations. &#0160;In fact, much of this mix of cyber and robotic weapon systems had already </span><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">penetrated</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;"> the opponent </span><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">years ago. &#0160;</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;">These cyber side weapons had been built to slowly traverse the Internet on their own looking for target systems to disable when hostilities began. &#0160;On the robotic side, there were long term underwater vehicles screwed in the sandy muck of the client state’s harbor, a critical pathway for the peer competitors long supply chain. &#0160;Other robotic weapons systems were entrenched in the landscape in and around the peer’s installations. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">These prepositioned systems had been gathering detailed information on the peer country’s order of battle in the client state for many years. &#0160;In fact, some of these prepositioned systems were cognitively adept enough to actively retrieve [and analyze on the spot] the detailed information most needed by the Joint Force Commander. &#0160;This information provided a critical part of the “big data” in the Joint Cloud that Joint Force autonomous systems used to construct detailed physical, organizational, and systemic models of the opponent. &#0160;These models made it possible for the Joint Task Force commander to run the millions of simulated engagements needed to develop successful methods of attack and uncover the nasty surprises that could put the mission in jeopardy. &#0160;</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Based on this earlier work, the first major assault of the war was designed to stress the peer’s A2/AD system in order to gather intelligence on its operation, deplete its resources, and [if possible] reinforce the Joint Force’s prepositioned forces with new capabilities. &#0160;The assault was composed of RAS swarms of smart air, land and sea platforms set to a high degree of variable autonomy. &#0160;Given the risk of the mission, the human teams teamed with the swarms were stationed beyond the edge of the battle area. &#0160;The RAS swarms were trained to deceive, jam, and confuse the active sensor network, on land and in space, the opposition’s defense systems relied upon for strike guidance. &#0160;This worked. &#0160;The defense system was lit up like a Christmas tree and fired multiple salvos of hypersonic missiles at the Joint Force assault. &#0160;However, when these missiles reentered, they were unable to find the ships and aircraft they were expected to destroy. &#0160;The second wave sent by the defense system was composed of thousands of low cost RAS platforms packed to the brim with lightning fast PGMs. &#0160;The RAS platforms, manufactured in large volume over the last two decades, were expected to close on targets and overwhelm them with superior mass. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">As these forces closed, it became clear that this wasn’t going to be a fair fight. &#0160;The Joint Force personnel at the edge of the effective battlespace were not surprised to see that the cloud-based training system they used to train their RAS swarms up until the last few days had successfully exploited the weaknesses and vulnerabilities of the peer’s A2/AD system. &#0160;These swarms were able to systematically confuse, jam, outmaneuver, evade, and destroy the much more numerous RAS platforms of the opponent due to the far superior situational awareness, adaptability, and training of the traditionally developed systems deployed against them. &#0160;The swarms that did make it through did run into a surprise when the anti-air mobile laser used RAS based cognitive capabilities to knock out a dozen Joint Force drones before it was taken out of action. &#0160;Fortunately, the peer’s employment of RAS platforms that were cognitively dangerous, was limited to this this mobile laser. &#0160;This allowed the surviving drones to successfully reinforce the prepositioned assets before departing for recovery. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">One the second day, the Joint Force Commander decided, based on the high degree of success so far, to accelerate the battle plan and takedown the entire A2/AD system without delay. The takedown assault began with an attack by hypersonic MIRVed missiles launched by F-35s in the north and converted Aegis cruisers at the edge of the peer’s defensive envelope. &#0160;These missiles released mesh networked MIRVs with the cognitive capability to rapidly evaluate their local situation and adopt the appropriate tactics during the handful of seconds available in the reentry phase. &#0160;To their credit, the MIRVs worked as expected, and they were able to take out the mobile RAS lasers that had been so problematic the day before. &#0160;&#0160;Simultaneous with this, the forward deployed RAS forces sprang into action. &#0160;Cyber weapons forced the systems they had penetrated into critical collapse and the RAS UUVs in client state’s harbor blew up two peer munitions transports, crippling resupply efforts. &#0160;In few short hours, the entire defense grid, with tens of thousands of PGMs still unused, was down and Air Force and Navy continuous monitoring by flights of man/machine teams went into action to ensure it stayed dark.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The moment the grid went down, the third and final phase of the operation was launched. &#0160;This phase leveraged the automation of the US military’s logistics system to rapidly stage a ground assault force to secure the area. &#0160;Largely automated, this system was able to move men and material at and construct forward bases at an unprecedented pace. &#0160;It was so fast, in fact, the Army and the Marines were ready to stage their assaults within a few weeks of the success over the defense grid. &#0160;The men on the assault teams were armed with RAS weapons and able to find, identify, track, and engage multiple threats simultaneously. &#0160;They were teamed with RAS attack dogs and RAS mules serving as the support base for the swarm of RAS drones constantly gathering information for the team. &#0160;</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The Army teams moving overland and Marine teams arriving by amphibious assault [in and around the harbor] traveled rapidly within self-driving RAS vehicles. &#0160;Since these vehicles, and the drones above them, were all using decentralized movement protocols, thousands of robotics vehicles were able to maintain high speed forward advance without congestion. &#0160;&#0160;Mesh networks connected these ground assault teams with the reinforced prepositioned forces, the combat overwatch above, and each other. &#0160;The ground assault’s RAS driven vehicles rapidly converged on the defended points identified by the prepositioned forces. &#0160;Despite some hard fought engagement and a few attempted ambushes, the ground assault was over quickly. &#0160;It was later determined that that due to the rapidity of the assaults, the peer competitor was completely unprepared for a ground assault. &#0160;</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Cognitive dominance achieved, the Joint Force Commander accepted the surrender of the enemy commander. </span></p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e200d8341bf69853efGlobal Guerrillashttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e00d83451576d69e201b7c887cc62970b John Robb posted an entry http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2016-08-16T19:31:36Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e201b7c887a48d970bAll Hail The Meme, The New King of Political Communicationshttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2016-08-16T19:31:35Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451576d69e2John Robbhttp://profile.typepad.com/johnrobb<p>During this year&#39;s US election, what is the most common form of political communication?</p> <p>Is TV, print, or online advertisements? &#0160;No. &#0160;</p> <p>Is TV, print, or online journalism? &#0160;No.</p> <p>The most common form of political messaging is found on social networking. &#0160;It&#39;s called a meme.&#0160;&#0160;</p> <p>A meme is an image and with a bit of text that conveys a very precise emotion or idea. &#0160;Up until this election, they were usually packaged like this:</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201bb092b19d9970d-pi" style="display: inline;"><img alt="Chucknorris" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201bb092b19d9970d img-responsive" src="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201bb092b19d9970d-320wi" title="Chucknorris" /></a></p> <p>Since then, memes have become aggressive products of political communication like this (notice the use of visual language and text to produce a precise emotion):</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201bb092b1d12970d-pi" style="display: inline;"><img alt="1hillary" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201bb092b1d12970d img-responsive" src="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201bb092b1d12970d-320wi" title="1hillary" /></a></p> <p>Millions of memes have been made. &#0160;Thousands more are being made every day. &#0160;</p> <p>Once made, they undergo a brutal process of natural selection with the best ending up on sites like Reddit (like the subreddit, <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/">The_Donald</a>), where subreddit members critique and vote up the best of them.</p> <p>Successful memes abound on every social network, often going viral to reach tens of millions of viewers in days as they are rapidly shared with an ever expanding network of friends.</p> <p>Collectively, memes generate tens of millions of impressions an hour. &#0160;Several orders of magnitude (100x) more than any other form of political communication.</p> <p>Unlike TV, Print, and most forms of online communication, memes are built for consumption on smartphones and visual modes of social networking. &#0160;They are also built for speedy consumption, providing a quick emotional hit in comparison to a long winded article with an uncertain payoff. &#0160;</p> <p>Nothing other form of political communications compare. &#0160;</p> <p>Memes are one of ways online conflict, in this case political conflict, is being fought. &#0160; These online wars are occurring everywhere, all the time, at every level. &#0160; They are deciding the future.</p> <p>That&#39;s why I&#39;m writing a new book called as a natural follow on to my previous book: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0471780790/ref=nosim/globalguerril-20">Brave New War</a>. &#0160;</p> <p style="padding-left: 30px;"><strong>The War Online</strong></p> <p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>How Conflicts are Fought and Won on Social Networks</em></p> <p>I haven&#39;t decided on a publisher or an agent for it yet. &#0160;So, if you are interested in publishing it, ping me at john@johnrobb.org. &#0160;Needless to say, I have so many amazingly cool ideas to share and it is becoming so central to our future, I have little doubt it&#39;s going to be a hit.</p> <p>More soon.</p> <p>John Robb</p> <p>PS: &#0160;This is an example of what Neal Stephenson called a&#0160;<em>mediaglyph</em>&#0160;- an icon used for communicating complex ideas with people who never learned how to read. &#0160;A future filled with people who can&#39;t read, didn&#39;t happen. &#0160;Reading is common, but having time or the means to read isn&#39;t.&#0160;</p> <p>During this year&#39;s US election, what is the most common form of political communication?</p> <p>Is TV, print, or online advertisements? &#0160;No. &#0160;</p> <p>Is TV, print, or online journalism? &#0160;No.</p> <p>The most common form of political messaging is found on social networking. &#0160;It&#39;s called a meme.&#0160;&#0160;</p> <p>A meme is an image and with a bit of text that conveys a very precise emotion or idea. &#0160;Up until this election, they were usually packaged like this:</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201bb092b19d9970d-pi" style="display: inline;"><img alt="Chucknorris" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201bb092b19d9970d img-responsive" src="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201bb092b19d9970d-320wi" title="Chucknorris" /></a></p> <p>Since then, memes have become aggressive products of political communication like this (notice the use of visual language and text to produce a precise emotion):</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201bb092b1d12970d-pi" style="display: inline;"><img alt="1hillary" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201bb092b1d12970d img-responsive" src="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201bb092b1d12970d-320wi" title="1hillary" /></a></p> <p>Millions of memes have been made. &#0160;Thousands more are being made every day. &#0160;</p> <p>Once made, they undergo a brutal process of natural selection with the best ending up on sites like Reddit (like the subreddit, <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/">The_Donald</a>), where subreddit members critique and vote up the best of them.</p> <p>Successful memes abound on every social network, often going viral to reach tens of millions of viewers in days as they are rapidly shared with an ever expanding network of friends.</p> <p>Collectively, memes generate tens of millions of impressions an hour. &#0160;Several orders of magnitude (100x) more than any other form of political communication.</p> <p>Unlike TV, Print, and most forms of online communication, memes are built for consumption on smartphones and visual modes of social networking. &#0160;They are also built for speedy consumption, providing a quick emotional hit in comparison to a long winded article with an uncertain payoff. &#0160;</p> <p>Nothing other form of political communications compare. &#0160;</p> <p>Memes are one of ways online conflict, in this case political conflict, is being fought. &#0160; These online wars are occurring everywhere, all the time, at every level. &#0160; They are deciding the future.</p> <p>That&#39;s why I&#39;m writing a new book called as a natural follow on to my previous book: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0471780790/ref=nosim/globalguerril-20">Brave New War</a>. &#0160;</p> <p style="padding-left: 30px;"><strong>The War Online</strong></p> <p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>How Conflicts are Fought and Won on Social Networks</em></p> <p>I haven&#39;t decided on a publisher or an agent for it yet. &#0160;So, if you are interested in publishing it, ping me at john@johnrobb.org. &#0160;Needless to say, I have so many amazingly cool ideas to share and it is becoming so central to our future, I have little doubt it&#39;s going to be a hit.</p> <p>More soon.</p> <p>John Robb</p> <p>PS: &#0160;This is an example of what Neal Stephenson called a&#0160;<em>mediaglyph</em>&#0160;- an icon used for communicating complex ideas with people who never learned how to read. &#0160;A future filled with people who can&#39;t read, didn&#39;t happen. &#0160;Reading is common, but having time or the means to read isn&#39;t.&#0160;</p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e200d8341bf69853efGlobal Guerrillashttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e00d83451576d69e201b7c885ed76970b John Robb posted an entry http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2016-08-11T13:47:49Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e201b7c885ed74970bI'm doing Reddit AMA on open source insurgency http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2016-08-11T13:47:48Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451576d69e2John Robbhttp://profile.typepad.com/johnrobb<p>I&#39;ve been <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/4x4n0f/please_join_me_in_welcoming_john_robb_author_of/">asked to do an AMA</a> (ask me anything) with Reddit&#39;s largest group (200k members). &#0160;</p> <p>___________</p> <p><strong>Please join me in welcoming John Robb for an AMA this Friday, August 12th, at 7PM EST!</strong></p> <p>John is an entrepreneur, defense and political expert who pioneered the theory of open source warfare. You can read much more on his blog, <a href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/">Global Guerrillas</a>.</p> <p>And you can read John&#39;s bio <a href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/about.html">here</a>.</p> <p>Open source insurgencies are informal associations of many independent groups. Members work towards a “plausible promise” – a shared goal that is broad enough to interpret according to one&#39;s own needs.</p> <p>Global elites are hollowing out the nation-state, creating the vacuum in which open source insurgencies thrive.</p> <p>Why is this interesting for the election? Because Trump’s campaign is also an open source insurgency. <strong>This is the science behind meme magic</strong>, and it’s why the establishment is doing everything they can to stop it. But while these types of movements win, something more is needed to build - John is also an expert in decentralized, resilient economies. The type that can bring security and stability in an era of automation and institutional collapse.</p> <p>If you want to learn more about how Trump&#39;s campaign works and what it might mean for the future, you don&#39;t want to miss this AMA!</p> <p><strong>Again, please join me - this Friday, August 12th, at 7PM EST!</strong></p> <p>A few articles of interest - very much worth the read!</p> <p><a href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2008/03/starting-an-ope.html">Open Source Insurgency (the basics)</a></p> <p><a href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2016/03/the-hollow-state-politics-the-left-behinds-vs-technorati.html">Hollow State Politics</a></p> <p><a href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2016/02/trumps-insurgency-explained.html">Trump&#39;s Insurgency</a></p> <p><a href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2016/07/journal-russian-disruption-of-the-us-election.html">The American Autumn</a></p> <p><a href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2016/06/the-public-pledge-of-the-ritual-shooter-om-in-the-name-of-god-the-merciful-the-beneficial-in-arabic.html">The Orlando Transcript and a Renewed Terrorist Threat</a></p> <p>I&#39;ve been <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/4x4n0f/please_join_me_in_welcoming_john_robb_author_of/">asked to do an AMA</a> (ask me anything) with Reddit&#39;s largest group (200k members). &#0160;</p> <p>___________</p> <p><strong>Please join me in welcoming John Robb for an AMA this Friday, August 12th, at 7PM EST!</strong></p> <p>John is an entrepreneur, defense and political expert who pioneered the theory of open source warfare. You can read much more on his blog, <a href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/">Global Guerrillas</a>.</p> <p>And you can read John&#39;s bio <a href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/about.html">here</a>.</p> <p>Open source insurgencies are informal associations of many independent groups. Members work towards a “plausible promise” – a shared goal that is broad enough to interpret according to one&#39;s own needs.</p> <p>Global elites are hollowing out the nation-state, creating the vacuum in which open source insurgencies thrive.</p> <p>Why is this interesting for the election? Because Trump’s campaign is also an open source insurgency. <strong>This is the science behind meme magic</strong>, and it’s why the establishment is doing everything they can to stop it. But while these types of movements win, something more is needed to build - John is also an expert in decentralized, resilient economies. The type that can bring security and stability in an era of automation and institutional collapse.</p> <p>If you want to learn more about how Trump&#39;s campaign works and what it might mean for the future, you don&#39;t want to miss this AMA!</p> <p><strong>Again, please join me - this Friday, August 12th, at 7PM EST!</strong></p> <p>A few articles of interest - very much worth the read!</p> <p><a href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2008/03/starting-an-ope.html">Open Source Insurgency (the basics)</a></p> <p><a href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2016/03/the-hollow-state-politics-the-left-behinds-vs-technorati.html">Hollow State Politics</a></p> <p><a href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2016/02/trumps-insurgency-explained.html">Trump&#39;s Insurgency</a></p> <p><a href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2016/07/journal-russian-disruption-of-the-us-election.html">The American Autumn</a></p> <p><a href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2016/06/the-public-pledge-of-the-ritual-shooter-om-in-the-name-of-god-the-merciful-the-beneficial-in-arabic.html">The Orlando Transcript and a Renewed Terrorist Threat</a></p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e200d8341bf69853efGlobal Guerrillashttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e00d83451576d69e201b8d20c6155970c John Robb posted an entry http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2016-08-02T19:31:24Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e201b8d20c6151970cLet's Make a Political Party out of Softwarehttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2016-08-02T19:31:24Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451576d69e2John Robbhttp://profile.typepad.com/johnrobb<p>Our political system is broken.</p> <p>How do we fix it? We don't.</p> <p>We hack it. </p> <p>We build a political party that works like a network.</p> <p>How? We turn the party into an app. &nbsp;Into software.</p> <p>My collaborator, the successful tech entrepreneur Jordan Greenhall, has a proposal for this.</p> <p><a href="https://medium.com/@jordangreenhall/we-can-restore-democracy-by-disrupting-politics-here-is-how-c9d514a8c194#.d7n3zy1xg">His proposal?</a> Build an app that allows members of the party to directly control the actions of the representatives they send to Washington. In his proposal, everything that the representative does in Washington, from votes to vetoes should be debated and voted on by the party members within the party app.</p> <p>However, instead of directly voting on every issue, party members can choose to give their votes to proxies who have the time, the character, and the expertise to make informed decisions on the issue. Once the vote is decided, the elected representative of the party in Washington would then cast that vote.</p> <p>Would it work? It might. &nbsp;</p> <p>It turns political decisions from something done by remote representatives over dinner with lobbyists into a highly participatory activity. &nbsp;However, due to use of proxies, it can be done without much of the cacophony seen in direct democracy efforts (or the collaborative sausage making we get with apps like <a href="https://snapguide.com/guides/use-piratepad-to-collaborate-on-text-documents/">piratepad</a>). &nbsp; &nbsp;</p> <p>Contrast what would happen with a party like this in&nbsp;<em>this</em> year's election. &nbsp;</p> <p>Instead of relentless name calling by a petty press and even pettier candidates, people inside the party network would be engaged in party debates over the issues to be decided before they vote for their candidates in the usual way (in the voting booth). &nbsp;</p> <p>As bad as it could be, the party network app would be better than it is today. &nbsp;From the process of sending people to Washington to what they do after they get there. &nbsp;</p> <p>Further, a software based system would undergo an iterative process of improvement, getting better with each failure, rather than the endless groundhog day of failure we currently see.&nbsp;</p> <p>I say, let's try it. &nbsp;What do we have to lose that we aren't losing already?</p> <p>Sincerely,</p> <p>John Robb</p> <p>PS: If built correctly, this party as app could run circles around traditional parties. It could even field candidates inside their primaries like the Tea Party and Sanders did, hacking them from <em>inside</em>.</p> <p>PPS: Summer is coming to a close and I'm looking for something interesting to work on over the next year. &nbsp;Specifically, I'm looking for a project management or strategy gig in a tech company in either Boston, NYC, or Washington. &nbsp; If there is a nat defense gig available, I'm up for that too. &nbsp;Let me know if you have something where I can help you succeed &gt; john@johnrobb.org</p> <p>Our political system is broken.</p> <p>How do we fix it? We don't.</p> <p>We hack it. </p> <p>We build a political party that works like a network.</p> <p>How? We turn the party into an app. &nbsp;Into software.</p> <p>My collaborator, the successful tech entrepreneur Jordan Greenhall, has a proposal for this.</p> <p><a href="https://medium.com/@jordangreenhall/we-can-restore-democracy-by-disrupting-politics-here-is-how-c9d514a8c194#.d7n3zy1xg">His proposal?</a> Build an app that allows members of the party to directly control the actions of the representatives they send to Washington. In his proposal, everything that the representative does in Washington, from votes to vetoes should be debated and voted on by the party members within the party app.</p> <p>However, instead of directly voting on every issue, party members can choose to give their votes to proxies who have the time, the character, and the expertise to make informed decisions on the issue. Once the vote is decided, the elected representative of the party in Washington would then cast that vote.</p> <p>Would it work? It might. &nbsp;</p> <p>It turns political decisions from something done by remote representatives over dinner with lobbyists into a highly participatory activity. &nbsp;However, due to use of proxies, it can be done without much of the cacophony seen in direct democracy efforts (or the collaborative sausage making we get with apps like <a href="https://snapguide.com/guides/use-piratepad-to-collaborate-on-text-documents/">piratepad</a>). &nbsp; &nbsp;</p> <p>Contrast what would happen with a party like this in&nbsp;<em>this</em> year's election. &nbsp;</p> <p>Instead of relentless name calling by a petty press and even pettier candidates, people inside the party network would be engaged in party debates over the issues to be decided before they vote for their candidates in the usual way (in the voting booth). &nbsp;</p> <p>As bad as it could be, the party network app would be better than it is today. &nbsp;From the process of sending people to Washington to what they do after they get there. &nbsp;</p> <p>Further, a software based system would undergo an iterative process of improvement, getting better with each failure, rather than the endless groundhog day of failure we currently see.&nbsp;</p> <p>I say, let's try it. &nbsp;What do we have to lose that we aren't losing already?</p> <p>Sincerely,</p> <p>John Robb</p> <p>PS: If built correctly, this party as app could run circles around traditional parties. It could even field candidates inside their primaries like the Tea Party and Sanders did, hacking them from <em>inside</em>.</p> <p>PPS: Summer is coming to a close and I'm looking for something interesting to work on over the next year. &nbsp;Specifically, I'm looking for a project management or strategy gig in a tech company in either Boston, NYC, or Washington. &nbsp; If there is a nat defense gig available, I'm up for that too. &nbsp;Let me know if you have something where I can help you succeed &gt; john@johnrobb.org</p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e200d8341bf69853efGlobal Guerrillashttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e00d83451576d69e201b7c880c215970b John Robb posted an entry http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2016-07-28T18:44:29Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e201b7c880c213970bThe American Autumn http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2016-07-28T18:44:29Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451576d69e2John Robbhttp://profile.typepad.com/johnrobb<p>Some thinking you might find useful. &#0160;It might sound wild and remote, but we are in a wild and out of control year. &#0160;ANYTHING can happen.</p> <p>A treasure trove of e-mail and voicemail messages from the Democratic National Committee has been leaked. &#0160;Here&#39;s what happened.</p> <ul> <li>The first installment of the leaked e-mails was released by Wikileaks at the start of the DNC convention. &#0160;More leaks have and will follow.<br /><br /></li> <li>The&#0160;contents of the leak show a brazen attempt by the DNC to help Hillary win the primary. &#0160;It also shows Dem campaign staffers to have acted inappropriately and in a prejudiced manner.<br /><br /></li> <li>Based on forensic analysis of the leak, it appears that the Russian government is involved</li> </ul> <p>The effects of the leak have been immediate and intense.</p> <ul> <li>The leak provided the confirmation to Sanders supporters that the primary was rigged against them. &#0160;This has led to&#0160;intense protests both within and outside the convention. &#0160;This suggests that the Clinton campaign lost a large number of&#0160;Bernie supporters forever.<br /><br /></li> <li>The media and the US government reaction to the leak has been aggressive. &#0160;They claim that the release is a brazen attempt by Putin to influence the US election by helping Trump win.&#0160;There have been attempts by the media to tie Trump to Putin but those lack evidence of any connection.<br /><br /></li> <li>Further, now that the Russian have interfered in our election, it&#39;s possible that they will do again. &#0160;This could be done through more leaks or as Bruce Schneier has pointed out: a hack of <a href="http://boingboing.net/2016/07/27/russia-and-other-states-could.html">poorly secured voting machines on election day</a>. &#0160;</li> </ul> <p>Where could this end up? &#0160;This is the interesting part. &#0160;This election isn&#39;t a normal election. &#0160;It is also a good demonstration of something the great scholar of warfare, Martin van Creveld said ~ if you fight barbarians long enough, you become a barbarian too.</p> <ul> <li><strong>The Trumpification</strong> <strong>of the Establishment</strong>&#0160;&gt;&gt; &#0160;Trump isn&#39;t running a campaign, he&#39;s running an <em>open source insurgency</em>&#0160;(<a href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2016/02/trumps-insurgency-explained.html">see my earlier article on this</a>) that makes him nearly immune to personal attack, and it is working. &#0160;He has secured&#0160;a whopping 7 points (47 to 40) lead over Clinton in a&#0160;recent national poll by the LA Times/USC --&#0160;despite the fact that&#0160;nearly EVERYONE&#0160;in the media, academic, government, and political establishment is working against him. &#0160;This loss of control has infuriated the establishment, leading to increasing levels of paranoia, hyperbole, and anger (particularly in the media). &#0160;In short, the establishment is starting to act increasingly like Trump does -- exaggerating and amplifying everything.<br /><br /></li> <li><strong>Intentional Electoral Disruption</strong>. &#0160; The potential threat of Russian hacking (voting machines, etc.) fits the scenario I outlined in&#0160;<a href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2016/03/how-the-us-ends-up-in-a-civil-war.html">my freakishly popular US Civil War article from earlier this year</a>. &#0160;With the tension between the divisions in the country increasing rapidly as both sides amplify and exaggerate every event, any overt attempt to rig (through disruption or hacking) the outcome of the election could result in widespread violence and/or a national fracture.</li> <li> <p><strong>The Administrative &#39;Coup&#39;.</strong>&#0160; Here&#39;s something that I didn&#39;t think possible until this week. &#0160;The <em>Trumpified</em> establishment might have found an avenue for disqualifying Trump as President: &#0160;Trump&#39;s rhetorical suggestion that Russian hackers should find Hillary&#39;s deleted e-mails. &#0160;This has led many people in the establishment to contend that Trump&#0160;committed &#39;treason and is now a&#0160;clear and present danger to the security of the US.&#39; &#0160;This national security angle -- the overt interference by Russia in US governance -- could make it possible to block&#0160;Trump as a candidate on national security grounds.&#0160;</p> </li> </ul> <p>Some thinking you might find useful. &#0160;It might sound wild and remote, but we are in a wild and out of control year. &#0160;ANYTHING can happen.</p> <p>A treasure trove of e-mail and voicemail messages from the Democratic National Committee has been leaked. &#0160;Here&#39;s what happened.</p> <ul> <li>The first installment of the leaked e-mails was released by Wikileaks at the start of the DNC convention. &#0160;More leaks have and will follow.<br /><br /></li> <li>The&#0160;contents of the leak show a brazen attempt by the DNC to help Hillary win the primary. &#0160;It also shows Dem campaign staffers to have acted inappropriately and in a prejudiced manner.<br /><br /></li> <li>Based on forensic analysis of the leak, it appears that the Russian government is involved</li> </ul> <p>The effects of the leak have been immediate and intense.</p> <ul> <li>The leak provided the confirmation to Sanders supporters that the primary was rigged against them. &#0160;This has led to&#0160;intense protests both within and outside the convention. &#0160;This suggests that the Clinton campaign lost a large number of&#0160;Bernie supporters forever.<br /><br /></li> <li>The media and the US government reaction to the leak has been aggressive. &#0160;They claim that the release is a brazen attempt by Putin to influence the US election by helping Trump win.&#0160;There have been attempts by the media to tie Trump to Putin but those lack evidence of any connection.<br /><br /></li> <li>Further, now that the Russian have interfered in our election, it&#39;s possible that they will do again. &#0160;This could be done through more leaks or as Bruce Schneier has pointed out: a hack of <a href="http://boingboing.net/2016/07/27/russia-and-other-states-could.html">poorly secured voting machines on election day</a>. &#0160;</li> </ul> <p>Where could this end up? &#0160;This is the interesting part. &#0160;This election isn&#39;t a normal election. &#0160;It is also a good demonstration of something the great scholar of warfare, Martin van Creveld said ~ if you fight barbarians long enough, you become a barbarian too.</p> <ul> <li><strong>The Trumpification</strong> <strong>of the Establishment</strong>&#0160;&gt;&gt; &#0160;Trump isn&#39;t running a campaign, he&#39;s running an <em>open source insurgency</em>&#0160;(<a href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2016/02/trumps-insurgency-explained.html">see my earlier article on this</a>) that makes him nearly immune to personal attack, and it is working. &#0160;He has secured&#0160;a whopping 7 points (47 to 40) lead over Clinton in a&#0160;recent national poll by the LA Times/USC --&#0160;despite the fact that&#0160;nearly EVERYONE&#0160;in the media, academic, government, and political establishment is working against him. &#0160;This loss of control has infuriated the establishment, leading to increasing levels of paranoia, hyperbole, and anger (particularly in the media). &#0160;In short, the establishment is starting to act increasingly like Trump does -- exaggerating and amplifying everything.<br /><br /></li> <li><strong>Intentional Electoral Disruption</strong>. &#0160; The potential threat of Russian hacking (voting machines, etc.) fits the scenario I outlined in&#0160;<a href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2016/03/how-the-us-ends-up-in-a-civil-war.html">my freakishly popular US Civil War article from earlier this year</a>. &#0160;With the tension between the divisions in the country increasing rapidly as both sides amplify and exaggerate every event, any overt attempt to rig (through disruption or hacking) the outcome of the election could result in widespread violence and/or a national fracture.</li> <li> <p><strong>The Administrative &#39;Coup&#39;.</strong>&#0160; Here&#39;s something that I didn&#39;t think possible until this week. &#0160;The <em>Trumpified</em> establishment might have found an avenue for disqualifying Trump as President: &#0160;Trump&#39;s rhetorical suggestion that Russian hackers should find Hillary&#39;s deleted e-mails. &#0160;This has led many people in the establishment to contend that Trump&#0160;committed &#39;treason and is now a&#0160;clear and present danger to the security of the US.&#39; &#0160;This national security angle -- the overt interference by Russia in US governance -- could make it possible to block&#0160;Trump as a candidate on national security grounds.&#0160;</p> </li> </ul>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e200d8341bf69853efGlobal Guerrillashttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e00d83451576d69e201b7c8795815970b John Robb posted an entry http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2016-07-09T00:04:53Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e201b8d2031d05970cSocial Violence Networkinghttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2016-07-09T00:04:52Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451576d69e2John Robbhttp://profile.typepad.com/johnrobb<p>It&#39;s amazing how quickly social media broadcasting has become central to social violence. It is being used by all of the participants:</p> <p><strong>Attackers</strong> (video was removed): &#0160;Larossi Abballa Facebook livestreamed his terrorist attack on the home of a police chief in France. &#0160;</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b7c8795046970b-pi" style="display: inline;"><img alt="Ck6EOJLXEAAJt4A" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b7c8795046970b img-responsive" src="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b7c8795046970b-320wi" title="Ck6EOJLXEAAJt4A" /></a></p> <p style="text-align: left;"><strong><a href="https://www.facebook.com/100007611243538/videos/1690073837922975/">Victims</a>: &#0160;</strong>Diamond Reynolds Facebook livestreamed a policeman shooting her boyfriend while he was reaching for his wallet.</p> <p style="text-align: left;"><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201bb091cd32c970d-pi" style="display: inline;"><img alt="FB live Laish" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201bb091cd32c970d img-responsive" src="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201bb091cd32c970d-320wi" title="FB live Laish" /></a></p> <div style="text-align: left;"><strong><a href="https://www.facebook.com/michaelbautista86/videos/vb.100003576517454/899698650159344/?type=2&amp;theater">Bystanders</a></strong>. Michael Bautista livestreamed the Dallas police shooting.</div> <div style="text-align: left;">&#0160;</div> <div style="text-align: left;"><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b8d203229a970c-pi" style="display: inline;"><img alt="Mb dallas" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b8d203229a970c img-responsive" src="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b8d203229a970c-320wi" title="Mb dallas" /></a></div> <div style="text-align: left;">&#0160;</div> <div style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>Social Violence Networking&#0160;</strong></span></div> <div style="text-align: left;">&#0160;</div> <div style="text-align: left;">This use of social media has led to a new dynamic&#0160;that bypasses the &quot;redirecting - calming - slowing&quot; influence of traditional media and the government. &#0160;This new dynamic is raw, unfiltered, and fast. &#0160;It also radically increases both the likelihood and the intensity of social violence. &#0160;</div> <div style="text-align: left;">&#0160;</div> <div style="text-align: left;">Let&#39;s dive into some of the details:</div> <ul> <li><strong>Violence as&#0160;performance art</strong>. &#0160;Selfies. &#0160;Instagram videos. &#0160;Twitter. &#0160;We&#39;ve been conditioned to record our experiences using social media. &#0160; Naturally, we&#39;re are seeing the same thing with violence. Recording violence and showing it to the world, raw and unedited, can be used to &quot;elevate the act&quot; and memorialize it. &#0160; &#0160;NOTE: &#0160;&#0160;ISIS recently stumbled onto this as a way to motivate people to engage in terrorism. &#0160;In these cases, the attackers used social media to turn their bloody attacks into both performance art and solemn ceremony. &#0160;It gave it meaning. We&#39;ll see more of that in the future.<br /><br /></li> <li><strong>We are bombarded with Instant outrage</strong>. &#0160;We are more vulnerable to emotional manipulation than ever before. &#0160;Our use of social media has changed us. &#0160;We are constantly on the hunt for pics, news, stories, and videos that grab our attention and titillate us. &#0160;Once we find them, we are then quick to share them with others. &#0160;Few things provoke outrage&#0160;faster than violence and injustice. &#0160; It is proving particularly effective when the videos arrive raw and unedited from an individual rather than from the media. &#0160;These personal broadcasts have an authenticity, a vulnerability, and an immediacy to them that greatly amplifies their emotional impact. &#0160;This makes them more effective at triggering violence than any sterile broadcast from a traditional media outlet.&#0160;<br /><br /></li> <li><strong>Echo chambers</strong>. &#0160;Our virtual networks on Facebook, Twitter, etc. surrounded us with people who think like we do. &#0160;These networks can easily become echo chambers. &#0160;Echo chambers that radically amplify outrageous social media videos, spreading the outrage like a contagion. &#0160;More importantly, it appears that this amplification can trigger individuals on the fence to engage in violence.</li> </ul> <p>Watch out.</p> <p>This roiling dynamic for amplifying social violence is very, very dangerous. &#0160;It has the potential to rip the lid off of this country faster than we can respond.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>John Robb</p> <p>It&#39;s amazing how quickly social media broadcasting has become central to social violence. It is being used by all of the participants:</p> <p><strong>Attackers</strong> (video was removed): &#0160;Larossi Abballa Facebook livestreamed his terrorist attack on the home of a police chief in France. &#0160;</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b7c8795046970b-pi" style="display: inline;"><img alt="Ck6EOJLXEAAJt4A" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b7c8795046970b img-responsive" src="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b7c8795046970b-320wi" title="Ck6EOJLXEAAJt4A" /></a></p> <p style="text-align: left;"><strong><a href="https://www.facebook.com/100007611243538/videos/1690073837922975/">Victims</a>: &#0160;</strong>Diamond Reynolds Facebook livestreamed a policeman shooting her boyfriend while he was reaching for his wallet.</p> <p style="text-align: left;"><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201bb091cd32c970d-pi" style="display: inline;"><img alt="FB live Laish" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201bb091cd32c970d img-responsive" src="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201bb091cd32c970d-320wi" title="FB live Laish" /></a></p> <div style="text-align: left;"><strong><a href="https://www.facebook.com/michaelbautista86/videos/vb.100003576517454/899698650159344/?type=2&amp;theater">Bystanders</a></strong>. Michael Bautista livestreamed the Dallas police shooting.</div> <div style="text-align: left;">&#0160;</div> <div style="text-align: left;"><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b8d203229a970c-pi" style="display: inline;"><img alt="Mb dallas" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b8d203229a970c img-responsive" src="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b8d203229a970c-320wi" title="Mb dallas" /></a></div> <div style="text-align: left;">&#0160;</div> <div style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>Social Violence Networking&#0160;</strong></span></div> <div style="text-align: left;">&#0160;</div> <div style="text-align: left;">This use of social media has led to a new dynamic&#0160;that bypasses the &quot;redirecting - calming - slowing&quot; influence of traditional media and the government. &#0160;This new dynamic is raw, unfiltered, and fast. &#0160;It also radically increases both the likelihood and the intensity of social violence. &#0160;</div> <div style="text-align: left;">&#0160;</div> <div style="text-align: left;">Let&#39;s dive into some of the details:</div> <ul> <li><strong>Violence as&#0160;performance art</strong>. &#0160;Selfies. &#0160;Instagram videos. &#0160;Twitter. &#0160;We&#39;ve been conditioned to record our experiences using social media. &#0160; Naturally, we&#39;re are seeing the same thing with violence. Recording violence and showing it to the world, raw and unedited, can be used to &quot;elevate the act&quot; and memorialize it. &#0160; &#0160;NOTE: &#0160;&#0160;ISIS recently stumbled onto this as a way to motivate people to engage in terrorism. &#0160;In these cases, the attackers used social media to turn their bloody attacks into both performance art and solemn ceremony. &#0160;It gave it meaning. We&#39;ll see more of that in the future.<br /><br /></li> <li><strong>We are bombarded with Instant outrage</strong>. &#0160;We are more vulnerable to emotional manipulation than ever before. &#0160;Our use of social media has changed us. &#0160;We are constantly on the hunt for pics, news, stories, and videos that grab our attention and titillate us. &#0160;Once we find them, we are then quick to share them with others. &#0160;Few things provoke outrage&#0160;faster than violence and injustice. &#0160; It is proving particularly effective when the videos arrive raw and unedited from an individual rather than from the media. &#0160;These personal broadcasts have an authenticity, a vulnerability, and an immediacy to them that greatly amplifies their emotional impact. &#0160;This makes them more effective at triggering violence than any sterile broadcast from a traditional media outlet.&#0160;<br /><br /></li> <li><strong>Echo chambers</strong>. &#0160;Our virtual networks on Facebook, Twitter, etc. surrounded us with people who think like we do. &#0160;These networks can easily become echo chambers. &#0160;Echo chambers that radically amplify outrageous social media videos, spreading the outrage like a contagion. &#0160;More importantly, it appears that this amplification can trigger individuals on the fence to engage in violence.</li> </ul> <p>Watch out.</p> <p>This roiling dynamic for amplifying social violence is very, very dangerous. &#0160;It has the potential to rip the lid off of this country faster than we can respond.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>John Robb</p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e200d8341bf69853efGlobal Guerrillashttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e00d83451576d69e201bb0917f65a970d John Robb posted an entry http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2016-06-28T18:03:22Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e201bb0917f3c2970dJournal 6.26.2016 Brexit to ISIShttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2016-06-28T18:03:22Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451576d69e2John Robbhttp://profile.typepad.com/johnrobb<p>Some items to think about:</p> <ul> <li><strong>Brexit is a true black swan</strong>. &#0160;Nobody in the mainstream, including the Leave camp, saw it coming. &#0160;Even now, based on the analysis being written, few people understand why it won. &#0160;Why did it win? &#0160;The cosmopolitan, financialized elites saw their incomes grow with globalization, but the deals they struck to &quot;earn&quot; those gains required throwing the bottom 60-70% of the country under the economic bus. &#0160;In fact, nearly all of the fast rise out of poverty seen globally was achieved by economically damaging the working populations of the developed world (particularly in the US and the UK). &#0160;That lopsided deal is a bomb of anger that has been growing for years. &#0160;A bomb that is now going off in the US and the UK. &#0160;Strangely, nobody in the establishment is willing to do what is necessary to defuse this bomb. &#0160;This means it will get much worse before it gets better.<br /><br /></li> <li><strong>The response to Brexit will damage nation-state legitimacy</strong>. &#0160;Efforts to ignore the vote, delay the effects of the vote, and water down the effects of the vote will achieve only one thing: &#0160;it will show that the remote technocrats have more legitimacy than the vestiges of democracy that are left.&#0160;<br /><br /></li> <li>A doctoral student at the Univ of Cincinnati built <a href="http://magazine.uc.edu/editors_picks/recent_features/alpha.html">an auto-fighter-pilot AI that runs on Raspberry Pi</a> (a $35 computer). &#0160;It was so good, it beat retired US Air Force fighter pilot, Lt. Col. Gene Lee, in three engagements. &#0160; <p>Lee: &#0160;&quot;<em>I was surprised at how aware and reactive it was. It seemed to be aware of my intentions and reacting instantly to my changes in flight and my missile deployment. It knew how to defeat the shot I was taking. It moved instantly between defensive and offensive actions as needed.</em>&quot;&#0160;He added that with most AIs, “<em>an experienced pilot can beat up on it (the AI) if you know what you’re doing. Sure, you might have gotten shot down once in a while by an AI program when you, as a pilot, were trying something new, but, until now, an AI opponent simply could not keep up with anything like the real pressure and pace of combat-like scenarios</em>.”</p> </li> </ul> <ul> <li>Apparently, <a href="http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-orlando-gay-fbi-20160623-snap-story.html">the FBI has found that Omar Mateen wasn&#39;t gay</a> and that all of the evidence to the contrary was false. &#0160;<br /><br /></li> <li><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b8d1fe4a9a970c-pi" style="display: inline;"><img alt="CmCO24lWgAAY0Vr" border="0" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b8d1fe4a9a970c image-full img-responsive" src="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b8d1fe4a9a970c-800wi" title="CmCO24lWgAAY0Vr" /></a></li> </ul> <p>Some items to think about:</p> <ul> <li><strong>Brexit is a true black swan</strong>. &#0160;Nobody in the mainstream, including the Leave camp, saw it coming. &#0160;Even now, based on the analysis being written, few people understand why it won. &#0160;Why did it win? &#0160;The cosmopolitan, financialized elites saw their incomes grow with globalization, but the deals they struck to &quot;earn&quot; those gains required throwing the bottom 60-70% of the country under the economic bus. &#0160;In fact, nearly all of the fast rise out of poverty seen globally was achieved by economically damaging the working populations of the developed world (particularly in the US and the UK). &#0160;That lopsided deal is a bomb of anger that has been growing for years. &#0160;A bomb that is now going off in the US and the UK. &#0160;Strangely, nobody in the establishment is willing to do what is necessary to defuse this bomb. &#0160;This means it will get much worse before it gets better.<br /><br /></li> <li><strong>The response to Brexit will damage nation-state legitimacy</strong>. &#0160;Efforts to ignore the vote, delay the effects of the vote, and water down the effects of the vote will achieve only one thing: &#0160;it will show that the remote technocrats have more legitimacy than the vestiges of democracy that are left.&#0160;<br /><br /></li> <li>A doctoral student at the Univ of Cincinnati built <a href="http://magazine.uc.edu/editors_picks/recent_features/alpha.html">an auto-fighter-pilot AI that runs on Raspberry Pi</a> (a $35 computer). &#0160;It was so good, it beat retired US Air Force fighter pilot, Lt. Col. Gene Lee, in three engagements. &#0160; <p>Lee: &#0160;&quot;<em>I was surprised at how aware and reactive it was. It seemed to be aware of my intentions and reacting instantly to my changes in flight and my missile deployment. It knew how to defeat the shot I was taking. It moved instantly between defensive and offensive actions as needed.</em>&quot;&#0160;He added that with most AIs, “<em>an experienced pilot can beat up on it (the AI) if you know what you’re doing. Sure, you might have gotten shot down once in a while by an AI program when you, as a pilot, were trying something new, but, until now, an AI opponent simply could not keep up with anything like the real pressure and pace of combat-like scenarios</em>.”</p> </li> </ul> <ul> <li>Apparently, <a href="http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-orlando-gay-fbi-20160623-snap-story.html">the FBI has found that Omar Mateen wasn&#39;t gay</a> and that all of the evidence to the contrary was false. &#0160;<br /><br /></li> <li><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b8d1fe4a9a970c-pi" style="display: inline;"><img alt="CmCO24lWgAAY0Vr" border="0" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451576d69e201b8d1fe4a9a970c image-full img-responsive" src="http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451576d69e201b8d1fe4a9a970c-800wi" title="CmCO24lWgAAY0Vr" /></a></li> </ul>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451576d69e200d8341bf69853efGlobal Guerrillashttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collection